The Swiss artist Arnold Böcklin (1827–1901) had already demonstrated his influence by Caspar David Friedrich and other German Romantic painters by the early 1870s, when he was working in Munich again. He then spent almost a decade settled in Florence, until 1885.

Spring in a Narrow Gorge (1881) seems to be a straightforward landscape painting, of a few birch trees in fresh Spring foliage (although the reference in the title isn’t to the season), in a narrow gorge. The water source of the title quite probably runs among the rocks at the base of the gorge, but isn’t readily visible.

Böcklin’s Summer Day (1881) shows a small river meandering through meadows, with summer flowers out on the grass, and white blossom on the strange-looking trees. In the background is a town, and half a dozen children are playing in or near the water, in the foreground. It has an air of calm and timelessness, otherwise it doesn’t seem to invite any deeper reading.

Ruin by the Sea (1881) makes its intent clear in returning to a more Romantic theme. The ruins of an old building are just above the waves. Growing within the broken walls are three cypress trees which lean away from the prevailing wind. Above them the sun’s rays break through banks of cloud in a dramatic light, and a large flock of crows are arriving to perch on the top of the walls. The ruin represents decay, perhaps that of later life, and the crows are harbingers of death. Cypress trees also have a strong association with cemeteries.

Many artists associated with German Romantic and Symbolist movements painted groups of worshippers within ancient trees, often under similar titles to Böcklin’s Sacred Grove, from 1882. The nine figures here are shrouded in white habits indicating their religious association. On top of a stone altar is a bright flame, at which three of them are bent low and kneeling in obeisance. Behind the grove, in the distance, is what appears to be a large stone building like a temple or monastery. In the foreground is a large pond in which white flowers are starting to open. However, the foliage of the trees indicates that it is autumn/fall.

Between 1880 and 1886, Böcklin painted a total of five different versions of his most famous work, Island (or Isle) of the Dead. Each shows a similar island, probably based in part on the English Cemetery in Florence, where his own baby daughter had been buried. Each shows the deceased being rowed across to the island, which calls on the classical myth of Charon, who rows the dead over the rivers Styx or Acheron to the underworld.

Böcklin painted the first version in 1880 for his patron Alexander Günther. This shows the boat just outside the harbour of a small rocky island which appears to be lined with mausoleums. The light is remarkable, seemingly a bright twilight, against dark water and sky. However the direction of travel of the boat is ambiguous, as it may actually be moving away from the island and towards the viewer.

While he was working on that version, the widow of a financier, Marie Berna, visited his studio in Florence, and commissioned a smaller version in memory of her first husband, who had died of diphtheria in 1865. For this, the artist added the standing figure and coffin, which he also added to the first version. At that time, Böcklin had titled the painting Tomb Island.

The third version of Island of the Dead was painted in 1883 for Böcklin’s dealer. The first two versions had encountered criticism. He accordingly changed the lighting and closed in on his motif, making this version much clearer that the boat was entering the island’s tiny harbour. Although less dramatically lit, this adds clarity to the most important part of the painting, as shown in the detail below.

He painted a fourth version in 1884, which was sadly destroyed during the Second World War.

The fifth version was commissioned by the Museum of Fine Arts in Leipzig, and was painted in 1886.

In 1888, Böcklin painted a complement, with the title Island of Life, and in the year of his death, a sixth version was in progress, which was completed by his son Carlo.

A great deal has been written and speculated about this remarkable series of paintings. Böcklin evokes mood, of a poignant calm, of death and loss. During the 1880s, its reputation grew. It was reproduced as a print by Max Klinger that sold strongly. Reproductions were bought by the Swedish artist Prince Eugen, and Georges Clemenceau, Prime Minister of France. By the early twentieth century, several artists had painted their own interpretations of the image. It has influenced countless painters, poets, writers, and other artists since.

Böcklin’s Attack by Pirates (1886) is perhaps a more direct German Romantic work, showing a group of pirates attacking some Italianate buildings atop the sheer cliffs of a tiny island connected by a viaduct. The attackers have already set light to the buildings, casting an eerie red light against the black clouds. Perhaps the artist felt that he was coming under similar attack by his critics.

That year, Böcklin moved from Florence to Zürich in Switzerland, where he turned more to narrative and mythological works. Then in 1892, he moved for the last time, to San Domenico near Florence, where he remained until he died in early 1901.

The Chapel, from 1898, is one of Böcklin’s last Romantic landscapes, and returns to similar sea-swept ruins as those in Ruin by the Sea above, but with some important changes. Here there is no doubt that the waves are destroying the remains of this chapel, as they crash against its walls. The cypresses are still curved with the wind, but instead of black crows there are white doves of peace. On the remains of the steps at the right are red flowers, which could have several associations, including love.

When landscape artists take to the hills, they often head for rocky peaks and miss the undulating uplands of the foothills. So u in this alphabet of landscapes stands for those undulating uplands that roll rather than precipitate. In English they’re often referred to as downs, which might appear contradictory, although the word has common origins with dunes, which makes more sense, perhaps.

Samuel Palmer’s view of The Weald of Kent from about 1833-34 is typical of what you see looking down from a ridge at the valley below. This is an area of low hills between the main South and North Downs in the south-east of England.

Although a bit more rugged than the Downs of England, Arnold Böcklin’s view In the Alban Hills from 1851 shows these hills about 20 km (12 miles) south-east of the city of Rome. These have long been a popular escape from the city during the hot months of summer.

Jean-François Millet returned to the rolling Normandy countryside of his birth in The Hamlet of Cousin near Gréville (1855). This shows the rough lane leading to another nearby hamlet, Cousin, amid rolling countryside with hedgerows enclosing tiny fields.

Benjamin Williams Leader found A Welsh Cornfield in 1862 with its cereal crop cut by hand into stooks ready for threshing. One of the women is using a ladder stile to traverse the field’s dry stone wall. There’s fine attention to detail, including appropriate native plants, in accordance with the principles of Pre-Raphaelite landscape painting.

Camille Pissarro’s Côte de Jalais, Pontoise (1867) shows the hill of Les Jalais at l’Hermitage, where Pissarro lived, viewed from the Chemin des Mathurins in Pontoise, north of Paris.

When Ivan Pokhitonov was living in Belgium in 1912, he painted this view of The Walloon Village of Jupille, catching its fruit trees in blossom.

In 1915 Eugène Burnand painted his last major work, Ploughing in the Jorat, but his first version was destroyed by fire. He completed this second version the following year. This wide-screen pastoral landscape contains a patchwork of villages and farmland between forested hills, near where the artist lived, to the north of Lausanne in Switzerland.

Paul Nash’s view of the Cotswold Hills, from about 1920, shows the rolling countryside near his family home in Buckinghamshire, England. These hills sprawl across a large tract of central western England, to the west of Oxford.

Grant Wood’s Spring Turning from 1936 is a high aerial view of rolling countryside in the American rural Midwest, being ploughed using a pair of horses, during the Spring. Its bright green fields seem almost endless.

Around 1939, shortly before the start of the Second World War, Eric Ravilious visited the famous White Horse cut in the chalk downs at Uffington in Berkshire, England. The Vale of the White Horse (c 1939) shows the view from an unconventionally low angle, in pouring rain. This hill figure is thought to date from the late Bronze or early Iron Age, around three millennia ago.

Percy Shakespeare’s painting of December on the Downs, Wartime, made during the Second World War, shows one of the rolling chalk downs in the south of England, with both tractors and teams of horses working the land.

The influence of Caspar David Friedrich, JC Dahl and the German Romantics can be seen in the works of several artists from later in the nineteenth century, among them Arnold Böcklin (1827–1901), a major Swiss painter who was extremely well known at the time.

Böcklin was born in Basel, Switzerland, and studied at the Düsseldorf Academy, where he became a friend of Anselm Feuerbach. During his training, he visited Antwerp and Brussels, then in 1848 went to Paris to copy in the Louvre.

His early landscapes were technically accomplished, mainly upland views such as Mountain Lake from 1846, typical of Swiss landscape painting at the time.

Böcklin soon showed interest in motifs derived more from the paintings of Friedrich and his friend and pupil Carl Gustav Carus. Landscape with Castle Ruins from 1847 is an example of this ‘Gothic’ Romantic style, its serene half-light full of foreboding.

Megalithic Tomb (1847) introduces anonymous figures who appear to be engaged in a mystical ceremony at this isolated location just below the snowline in the mountains. In the foreground is a boggy lake with a heron-like bird stepping out from cover.

Even his relatively plain landscapes acquire a feeling of something else. In his Mountain Landscape with Waterfall from about 1849, the foreground is in shadow, and the distant peaks are well-lit. Visible at the right of the waterfall is a wild animal, and there’s a shadowy figure perhaps in the lower right corner. Or maybe it’s just the light playing tricks.

In 1850, Böcklin moved to Rome, where he started to paint in the Campagna.

In the Alban Hills from 1851 is a fine depiction of these hills about 20 km (12 miles) south-east of the city of Rome. Unlike many artists working in the Campagna at the time, Böcklin must have painted this work in the studio from extensive sketches and studies made in front of the motif. Look closely, though, and there’s a dark figure standing beside a small smoking fire, to the left of the central mass of trees, and further to the left might be the entrance to a dark cavern.

Böcklin uses more dramatic lighting in his Roman Landscape from 1852. Its dark wood is very dark indeed, not the sort of place to enter alone. At the foot of the prominent tree at the right is what appears to be a woman undressing, as if going to bathe in the stygian gloom.

In 1853, when he was in Rome, Böcklin married, and started to raise his family there. Six years later, though, he nearly died of typhoid. By that time, his mythological paintings were achieving critical recognition, and he was appointed professor at the Weimar Academy in Germany. He stayed there for two years before moving back to Rome in 1862, where started work on his first major landscape painting: Villa by the Sea.

Böcklin painted his first version of Villa by the Sea in 1864, using a mixture of encaustic (wax) paints and resins. Those have sadly not aged well, but this shows a romanesque villa at the water’s edge. Beside it is a small bay, where a woman stands looking at the sea in front of her.

Böcklin painted a second version the following year, using more conventional oil paints. The villa now appears overgrown and partly in ruins, its cypress and other trees leaning away from the prevailing wind. The woman, dressed in black, is now cradling her head with one hand as she looks at the sea.

In another version painted between 1871-74, now in the Städel in Frankfurt, it’s last light, with a band of cloud on fire with the last rays of the setting sun. Although the garden of the villa is well-grown, it appears in better condition, and the woman still stands staring at the sea.

Modern reading of these paintings has been influenced by an account published by William Ritter in 1895, stating that they tell the story of Iphigenia in Tauris. Although Ritter appears to have consulted with the artist, Böcklin himself isn’t known to have confirmed this, and there are no specific clues in any of their versions.

Iphigenia was the daughter of Agamemnon and Clytemnestra, who was to be sacrificed to give the Greek fleet favourable winds so that they could attack Troy. There is no coherent account of her fate, but in one version her life was spared, and she was rescued to become priestess of Artemis on Tauris. There, she watched for the arrival of sailors, who would be captured to be offered in sacrifice to Artemis. The painting could thus be centred on waiting, death, and the passage of time, which are at least consistent with what Böcklin depicted.

Böcklin continued to move between Germany, Switzerland and Italy. In 1866, he went back to Basel, then on to Munich in 1871, where he painted the work below.

In his Mountain Castle with a Train of Warriors from 1871, a small band of warriors clad in scarlet are making their way up a track towards an ancient castle overlooking a valley. Down below them, amid a stand of cypress trees, is a villa. There are no other clues as to any underlying narrative.