Tales from the Island of Serendip 4 4

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The eponymously titled movie of 1942 produced by Val Lewton was not one of his best..

 

 

 

 

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...but has some creepy atmosphere.

 

 

 

 

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Bocklin's masterpiece was also the inspiration for one of my favorite novels by Roger Zelazny.

 

 

 

 

 

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Finally, Bocklin's work clearly influenced the striking imagery of Vincent Ward's film of Richard Matheson's book "What dreams may come."

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

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The film is about heaven...

 

 

 

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...and hell...

 

 

 

 

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...and what happens to us after we die.

 

 

 

 

 

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Most of all it is about despair redeemed.

 

 

 

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Who knows? Perhaps Isle of the Dead was Bocklin's own redemption from the despair he surely felt at his young daughter's untimely death...

 

 

 

 

 

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... in order to persuade himself that love transcends death after all...

 

 

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DOVER BEACH

The sea is calm tonight.

The tide is full, the moon lies fair

Upon the straits; on the French coast the light

Gleams and is gone; the cliffs of England stand;

Glimmering and vast, out in the tranquil bay.

Come to the window, sweet is the night air!

Only, from the long line of spray

Where the sea meets the moon-blanched land,

Listen! you hear the grating roar

Of pebbles which the waves draw back, and fling,

At their return, up the high strand,

Begin, and cease, and then again begin,

With tremulous cadence slow, and bring

The eternal note of sadness in.

 

Sophocles long ago

Heard it on the Aegean, and it brought

Into his mind the turbid ebb and flow

Of human misery; we

Find also in the sound a thought,

Hearing it by this distant northern sea.

 

The Sea of Faith

Was once, too, at the full, and round earth's shore

Lay like the folds of a bright girdle furled.

But now I only hear

Its melancholy, long, withdrawing roar,

Retreating, to the breath

Of the night-wind, down the vast edges drear

And naked shingles of the world.

 

 

Ah, love, let us be true

To one another! for the world, which seems

To lie before us like a land of dreams,

So various, so beautiful, so new,

Hath really neither joy, nor love, nor light,

Nor certitude, nor peace, nor help for pain;

And we are here as on a darkling plain

Swept with confused alarms of struggle and flight,

Where ignorant armies clash by night.

 

Matthew Arnold

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As a young student, symbolism fascinated me for its intensity -

 

 

 

Böcklin: The Isle of the Dead

 

 

 

 

 

Thanks for posting this. That painting was so awesome I had to read the wiki... ok interested...then I did a google Image search for H.R. Giger's homage to it, and under the image search I saw Curiator.com pop up a few times, so I then checked that out... It seems like an awesome art sharing website! Im stoked!

 

Sorry for all the rambling, just wanted to say thanks for the rabbit hole man!

 

Many thanks - rambling is always welcome!

 

It was fun to compile an impromptu mini essay on Bocklin in response to your kind words yesterday.

 

In the course of writing this thread I've touched on many things without always going into a great deal of detail.

 

But I am always happy to revisit any unfinished themes...

[Dr. Love]

 

 

Thank you Michael

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Thank you Michael

 

My pleasure Andy.

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Was God an Astronaut?

 

 

 

 

 

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"Somewhere, something incredible is waiting to be known."

Carl Sagan

 

 

 

 

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In 1968 Eric Von Daniken published Chariots of the Gods, in which he claimed to have irrefutable evidence that extraterrestrials had been responsible for founding human civilization.