Arnold Böcklin

A Narrow Gorge with a Stream
1881

Oil on canvas
85 x 62 cm

Signed with the initials and dated at the upper left AB/1881

Provenance :
Kunsthandlung Fritz Gurlitt, Berlin, 1881
Friedrich C. Wilke (hat manufacturer), Guben, 1898
Max Wilke, Guben, 1914
Erich Wolf - Wilke, Guben
Frau Elisabeth Wolf - Wilke, Gasstrasse, Guben (to 1945)
Held at the Cracow Museum, 1946
Acquired by Alexander Wax, Cracow,
(emigrated to Israel in 1950, painting held there until 1976)
Wolfgang Schuller Kunsthandel, Wertheim/Main, 1976
Private Collection, Switzerland (since 1977)

Exhibitions :
A. Böcklin 1827-1901. Ausstellung zum 150. Geburtstag. Exhibition organized by the Magistrat der Stadt Darmstadt, Darmstadt, Mathildenhöhe, 23 October - 11 December 1977, II, no. 32, repr. p.79.
‘In uns selbst liegt Italien' - Die Kunst der Deutsch-Römer, Munich, Haus der Kunst, 12 December 1987 - 21 February 1988, no. 4, repr. in colour. p.217.
‘Deutsch-Römer'. Il mito dell'Italia negli artisti tedeschi 1850-1900, Rome, Galleria Nazionale d'Arte Moderna e Contemporanea, 22 April - 29 May 1988, no. 29, repr. in colour.
Arnold Böcklin - Giorgio de Chirico - Max Ernst, Eine Reise ins Ungewisse, Kunsthaus Zürich, 3 October 1997 - 18 January 1998, no. 67, repr. in colour p.166.
Ibid, Munich, Haus der Kunst, 5 February - 3 May 1998, no. 67, repr. in colour p.166.
Arnold Böcklin - Eine Retrospektive, Paris, Munich and Basel, Öffentliche Kunstsammlung/Kunstmuseum, 19 May - 26 August 2001, no. 65, repr. in colour p.275.

Literature :
Rolf Andree, Arnold Böcklin. Die Gemälde, Schweiz. Institut für Kunstwissenschaft, Zürich (Oeuvrekataloge Schweizer Künstler 6), Friedrich Reinhardt Verlag, Basel and Hirmer Verlag, Munich 1977, no. 362

This painting is generally regarded as one of Böcklin's major works from his classical period. It was executed during his first sojourn in Florence in 1874-5, a year after he had completed the first two versions of his most important work, the Toteninsel. The subject matter of the present painting has strong affinities with this celebrated work. The rugged cliffs depicted in the Toteninsel take on the form of a narrow, shadow-filled gorge in the present painting. The stream, a silvery ribbon of water glinting beneath the trunks of the silver birches, is undoubtedly a metaphor for the transience of human life. This recalls the theme of his Vita Somnium Breve executed in 1888. In the Toteninsel the dark cypresses are compactly grouped, but in the present painting the slender trunks of the silver birches are grouped so as to allow the passage of light. This too is interpretable as a metaphor - for redemption. The work is remarkable for what Jacob Burckhardt once described as a tiefer poetischer Fonds [immense poetic depths]. The absence of figures is striking in a composition so highly focussed on an issue central to human existence. Similarly, Böcklin's initial ideas for the Island of the Dead did not allow for the inclusion of figures. It was only while working on the first version of the composition that he arrived at the decision to include them.

The painting is of very fine quality and is in excellent condition. The cliff walls framing the composition and the rocky ground at the foot of the gorge are executed in delicate, transparent brushstrokes. In the sky above, a narrow band of daylight turns the tops of the two trees nearest to the viewer to vivid green while the depths of the gorge are bathed in gloom. In the distance, vertical ribbons of light scatter reflections on the trunks of the birches. Silvery highlights gleam on the surface of the water as it flows over the boulders and accentuate the sparse vegetation at the base of the cliffs.

A Narrow Gorge with a Stream is one of the last remaining works from Böcklin's most important period not held in a public collection.