Sacred grove

This 1882 canvas is the first major iteration of a theme Böcklin would revisit in 1886 — the sacred grove — making this Basel picture the founding statement of one of his most atmospheric concepts. In classical antiquity, the lucus or sacred grove was a site set apart from everyday life, governed by taboos, tended by priests, and understood as the dwelling of divine presences. The concept resonated strongly with the Romantic generation's interest in finding pre-Christian spiritual authenticity in European landscape. For Böcklin, who had long been drawn to ancient myth and lived for extended periods in Italy, the sacred grove offered an ideal vehicle for combining his mastery of landscape with his feeling for the numinous. The Kunstmuseum Basel holds this as one of the key works of his mature symbolic landscape practice, a forerunner of the Symbolist movement proper in its evocation of mystery through natural form.

On canvas, Böcklin deploys his characteristic method of building atmospheric landscape through layered glazes over a solid underdrawing. The tree forms serve simultaneously as naturalistic observation and as architectural elements defining sacred enclosure; the handling of canopy and shadow mass is decisive and confident.