/lit/ - Literature

This painting by Böcklin always gave me an ambiguous impression. Another painting of his, the one for which he is best known, the "Isle of the Dead", was described in a book I read as "a dream of the south and of death." Which strikes me as a very Thomas Mann sort of theme. It was extraordinarily popular in Germany, to the point that Nabokov said a print could be found "in every Berlin home". It was also reputedly a favourite of both Hitler and Stalin. This painting gives off that same melancholy Arcadian . E.M. Forster describes being enchanted by this, as well as by Böcklin's paintings of Pan, during his visit to Munich: another elemental, morbid, pagan figure. There is sort of a dark lightning virility in many of Böcklin's paintings that grinds uncomfortably against his almost kitsch reputation...

I feel like an idiot. It takes me so long to get through a book. I just can't seem to focus and many times I feel like I just don't get it. I'm reading notes from underground and it took me hours just to get through the first 20% of the book.

tfw never live in bocklin painting