Arnold Böcklin, 'A Cliff Face', about 1850-5

Arnold Böcklin was a Swiss artist who trained in Germany. After completing his military service, he got married. Sadly, his wife died less than a year later. Heartbroken, he set off for Rome in 1850. He was captivated by Italy and stayed for seven years. He married an Italian, Angela Pascucci, and they would go on to have 14 children. While in Rome, his work began to change from dramatic and realistic landscapes to pictures with increasingly mythological content. He visited Italy throughout his career. Later in life he returned to Germany only occasionally, to experiment with flying machines. He died in Tuscany in 1901.

Böcklin responded positively to the light-bathed countryside around Rome. During his first visit in 1850 he studied the rugged cliffs, rocks and chasms of the Roman Campagna. Unlike other artists, Böcklin was not drawn to the familiar sites and classical monuments in Rome. Instead, he preferred sites seemingly untouched by humans. He started to produce small-scale landscape studies. He used these as references for his large-scale oil paintings, most famously The Island of the Dead (New York, Metropolitan Museum, and four other versions).

Böcklin is associated with the Symbolist movement and created many classical mythological scenes. He was influenced by works of Renaissance artists like Leonardo and Raphael. He studied these in Italy before turning his attention to Baroque painters such as Rubens. These influences would set the course for his work throughout his career.

In sketches such as this, Böcklin seems to have been trying out landscapes that he would populate with mythological figures in his finished works. It is not possible to pinpoint the exact location. The actual size of the cliff is also difficult to determine. It has been suggested that human faces can be seen in the rock face, and that noses, eyes and even complete profiles emerge from the rocks. The humour of many of his later paintings, as well as their sometimes macabre and dark elements, might be detected in these faces in the cliff.