The Isle of the Dead, 1880 (now in the Kunstmuseum Basel). Arnold Böcklin (Swiss, Basel 1827–1901 San Domenico, Italy) (click on the image for the second version) Metropolitan Museum, NY.  Böcklin  painted three more versions, all with a lighter sky. One is in Berlin (1883, Alte Nationalgalerie), one is in Leipzig (1886, Museum der Bildenden Künste), and the third (1884) was destroyed in World War II.
The oarsman could  represent the boatman Charon who conducts souls to the underworld in Greek mythology. Thus, the water would then be the River Styx and the white-clad passenger a recently deceased soul transiting to the afterlife and/or the standing figure is a widow shrouded in white who accompanies her husband's draped coffin.   The tiny island is dominated by a grove of tall, dark cypress trees (associated with mourning and cemeteries).  Notice the sepulchral portals and windows penetrating the rock faces and  the golden/white rectangular shapes. The guard dog Cerberus waits at the landing. The painting is all mood. If we begin to ask questions, why is the oarsman  rowing backwards, or noting that the objects are all stage props, then the mood is broken. The painting plows ahead, an improbable solid dream world  - Romanticism at its best and worst. The painting was enormously popular in its day, bad reproductions were found in many late 19th century homes. Freud had a reproduction on his wall, as did Lenin. Even Hitler owned a version.	If you want music to go with the painting  here is Rachmaninov's The Isle of the Dead, Symphonic poem Op. 29.
(right) This is his 5th version, painted in 1886, now in Leipzig.