Viola

This 1866 work on slate — a highly unusual support — depicts Viola, a figure whose name suggests either the musical instrument or Shakespeare's character from Twelfth Night, or perhaps both together. The choice of slate as a painting surface is remarkable; its dark, cold grey ground inflects both the color and the mood of the image in ways canvas or panel cannot replicate. Böcklin occasionally experimented with unconventional supports, and the choice here for a figure with a musical or theatrical name suggests a deliberate aesthetic decision. The Kunstmuseum Basel preserves this as a singular example of his willingness to extend beyond conventional materials, creating a work whose physical properties are inseparable from its subject.

Painting on slate requires the artist to adapt to a non-porous, very smooth, very dark surface that behaves unlike canvas or wood panel. Pigments applied to slate have unusual opacity and luminosity characteristics; the dark ground shows through thin paint layers in ways that give the image a distinctive tonal quality impossible to achieve on a conventional support.