ID: 700008286 Page link: http://vocab.getty.edu/page/cona/700008286	Record Type: Movable Work
Images: 1

Quell in einer Felsschlucht (Spring in a Narrow Gorge) (painting (visual work); Arnold Böcklin (German, born Switzerland, 1827 - 1901) (G...; 1881; J. Paul Getty Museum at the Getty Center (Los Angeles, Los A...; 2010.31;)

Note: Between high, forbidding cliffs, where wildflowers bloom in shadow and a narrow stream trickles among the rocks, a ray of light finds its way, touching the slender birch trunks and wet stone with glints of silver. In the distance, a dark stand of trees, silhouetted against the pale sky, creates a sense of mystery and foreboding, even as the young birch leaves above seem to flutter, brilliant green in the sunlight. Quell in einer Felsschlucht (Spring in a Narrow Gorge) is a composition of deceptive simplicity, a sharply circumscribed landscape vignette that nonetheless evokes something more than the rocks and trees it represents. The image is a symbolic rather than a descriptive landscape, an invented scene composed by Böcklin for maximal atmospheric effect. As a pure landscape, with no mythological or religious staffage, it is virtually unique in the artist's mature oeuvre. Nevertheless, it exemplifies all that is most compelling and mysterious in the artist's representative style, the suggestive power that made him a hero for the succeeding Symbolist generation and, years later, a source of inspiration for the Surrealists. Painted in 1881, Quell in einer Felsschlucht dates from the peak of Böcklin's artistic production. The picture was completed one year after his most recognizable work, Die Toteninsel (The Island of the Dead, 1880, Basel, Kunstmuseum), which was, at one time, the most famous contemporary painting in the world. Several scholars have recognized connections between the two pictures. Both are nearly symmetrical compositions framed by towering cliffs; both present solemn, portentous landscapes whose silence is punctuated by the imaginary sound of water. Some have even gone so far as to suggest that Quell in einer Felsschlucht offers us a view of the Toteninsel's interior-a stream of life sprung up on the island of the dead. The potential meanings of both pictures are equally veiled; they solicit interpretation but refuse to provide definite answers. Should we understand the Quell as a representation of life's brevity or its eternity? Should we interpret the light between the trees as a sign of hope or of futility?Böcklin achieved his command of suggestive, imaginary landscape only after years of studying nature. The plein-air sketches of his student days and mythological landscapes of his early career demonstrate the artist's talent for and determined practice of direct observation. Although for symbolic landscapes like the present painting he abandoned his earlier descriptive methods in favor of a more inventive approach, the eerily convincing materiality of such imaginary scenes plainly derives from a prolonged study of nature. The thinly painted cliff faces somehow persuade us of their rugged solidity; the scattered rocks, of their moisture; the treetops, of their leafiness. Yet none of it seems quite real either. Dramatic backlighting and tiny flowers picked out with specks of bright impasto give the picture a delicate and haunting beauty far removed from ordinary experience. In this respect, Quell in einer Felsschlucht may be compared to the late studio landscapes of Camille Corot, similarly flecked with white and marked by contrasts between pearly skies and twilit trees. Both painters may be regarded as Symbolists avant-la-lettre, painters of a dream world.

Titles:

Quell in einer Felsschlucht (Spring in a Narrow Gorge) (preferred,C,U,RP,English-P,,)

Spring in a Narrow Gorge (C,U,DE,English,U,U)

Catalog Level: item

Work Types:

painting (visual work) [300033618] (preferred)

..... (Objects Facet, Visual and Verbal Communication (hierarchy name), Visual Works (hierarchy name), visual works (works), <visual works by material or technique>)

Classifications:

paintings (preferred)

Creation Date: 1881

Creator Display:

Arnold Böcklin (German, born Switzerland, 1827 - 1901) (German Artist) [preferred,JPGM]

painter Böcklin, Arnold (Swiss-German painter, 1827-1901) [500016466]

Locations:

Current: J. Paul Getty Museum at the Getty Center (Los Angeles, Los Angeles county, California, United States) [500329598] J. Paul Getty Museum, J. Paul Getty Trust, Corporate Bodies (Corp. Body)

Repository Numbers: 2010.31

Other: Creation: Italia [1000080] Europe (continent), World (facet) (Geographic)

Display Materials: Oil on canvas

	oil paint (paint) [300015050]
	.......(Materials Facet, Materials (hierarchy name), materials (substances), <materials by function>, coating (material), <coating by form>, paint (coating), <paint by composition or origin>)

	canvas (textile material) [300014078]
	.......(Materials Facet, Materials (hierarchy name), materials (substances), <materials by form>, <materials by physical form>, <fiber and fiber by product>, <fiber by product>, textile materials, <textile materials by process or technique>)

Dimensions: Unframed: 84.5 x 59.4 cm (33 1/4 x 23 3/8 in.); Framed [outer dim] (Display): 103.5 x 78.7 x 5.4 cm (40 3/4 x 31 x 2 1/8 in.)

Cultures:

German (preferred)

General Subject:

landscapes (preferred)

Specific Subjects:

	gorge (landform) [300008767]
	.....(Objects Facet, Built Environment (hierarchy name), Settlements and Landscapes (hierarchy name), landscapes (environments), natural landscapes, landforms (terrestrial), fluvial landforms) (AAT)

	canyon [300008763]
	.....(Objects Facet, Built Environment (hierarchy name), Settlements and Landscapes (hierarchy name), landscapes (environments), natural landscapes, landforms (terrestrial), fluvial landforms) (AAT)

	stream [300008699]
	.....(Objects Facet, Built Environment (hierarchy name), Settlements and Landscapes (hierarchy name), landscapes (environments), natural landscapes, bodies of water (natural), bodies of freshwater, <bodies of freshwater by biome>, riverine bodies of water) (AAT)

List/Hierarchical Position:

..... Movable Works

.......... Movable Works by class: drawings, paintings, prints, other two-dimensional media

Sources and Contributors:
Quell in einer Felsschlucht (Spring in a Narrow Gorge)	........ [JPGM,VP]
	........ J. Paul Getty Museum database for collections (2000-)
Spring in a Narrow Gorge	........ [JPGM,VP]
	........ J. Paul Getty Museum database for collections (2000-)

Subject: ....... [JPGM,VP]

Note:
English	..... [JPGM]
	..... J. Paul Getty Museum database for collections (2000-)