The Homecoming

Influenced by Romanticism, Böcklin's painting is symbolist with mythological subjects often overlapping with the Pre-Raphaelites. His pictures portray mythological, fantastical figures alongside classical architectural constructions (often revealing an obsession with death), creating a strange fantasy world. Böcklin is best known for his five versions (painted in 1880-1886) of the Isle of the Dead, which partly evokes the English Cemetery, Florence, which was close to his studio and where his baby daughter, Maria, had been buried. An early version of the painting was commissioned by Madame Berna, a widow who wanted a painting with a dream-like atmosphere. Clement Greenberg wrote in 1947 that Böcklin's work "is one of the most consummate expressions of all that was now disliked about the latter half of the nineteenth century.” Die Heimkehr (The Homecoming) is the painting that inspired Rachmaninoff in composing his Prelude in B minor Op. 32 No. 10. Try listening to it while looking at the painting. It's an entrancing experience that helps you enter the universe of sight, the universe of sound.