This is an image of one of several versions of "The Isle of the Dead" that Swiss symbolist painter
Arnold Bocklin made during his career. This could be the one that's in the Metropolitan Museum in New York. These paintings were made back in the 1890's or so, during the Art Nouveau period, but the feeling that symbolists
like Bocklin brought to their work was often far more expressive and dark than the average for that style or period. I've
seen a few other works by the artist, and some of them are very fine, but this was
by far his best and most expressive theme. I've run across a print of another version of this work, the original
of which is in Leipzig, Germany, and it's even more
compelling and dramatic. Maybe I'll add it to this site at some point. But
we don't want to be too depressing here, eh? As with the other images in this series, there is absolutely no connection to my being a Windows NT kernel mode
device driver developer. It's just a co-incidence these images
appear in this particular context, and nothing more. Really. |