Arnold Bocklin was a Swiss painter whose allegorical and
fantastical paintings, many based on mythical creatures, anticipated
20th-century surrealism. His early style consisted of idealized
classical landscapes. In the 1870s, he turned to fantastic scenes
from German legends, paralleling the use by Richard Wagner of
similar subjects in opera. His later works, such as The Island of the
Dead (in five versions, from 1880, one in the Metropolitan Museum,
New York City), became increasingly dreamlike and nightmarish.