We will never know for certain whether or not the personification of death was an afterthought, as one account would have it. Artists’ self-portraits with a memento mori have been known since time immemorial. The inspiration for this figure of Death playing the fiddle probably came from the Portrait of Sir Bryan Tuke in the Alte Pinakothek in Munich, where Böcklin had lived since 1871. At the time it was wrongly attributed to Hans Holbein the Younger, whose woodcuts of dances of death with images of Death playing the fiddle would also have been known to Böcklin. In this self-portrait, Death is playing on the lowest string, tuned to G, which is here also the only string of the fiddle. The painter, alert, has paused in his work. According to the story, Böcklin only painted in the figure of Death in response to his friends’ asking what he seemed to be listening to. This clearly relates to the search for the ultimate that characterizes this self-portrait, and the inspiration the artist draws from the constant proximity of death. The impressive quality of this self-portrait inspired other painters including Hans Thoma and Lovis Corinth to paint similar portraits of themselves.

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　　肖像画上加上死神，这在东方人看来是不可理解的。可是在德国，据说民间有这个传统。这一方面来自民间哲学，一方面来自德国世纪末悲哀哲学。两者自然融合，充分反映着上世纪末德国充满颓废情绪的社会观念，用德国的理想主义哲学来解释，颓废是给浪漫主义--不受限制、理想、非真实、狂想、怀旧、幻灭、死亡等--以新的活力。象征主义艺术本来含有颓废心理。许多画家喜欢描绘死亡、揭示人的欲望等颓废心理。勃克林的画例是最典型的。 画上的勃克林在十分认真地面对画布，可是在他背后紧盯着一个拉琴的死神，以暗示万物皆虚的哲理。他告诫人们，也告诫画家自己，世间一切虚荣纯属徒劳，任何努力总难免一死。死神不是其他，而是艺术家心中的缪斯，勃克林正在谛听死神的演奏，琴声激励着他，使他更加勤奋地创作，使他觉得只有眼前的创作才是永生的。