Ferdinand Hodler (1853-1918), born in Bern, is one of the best known Swiss painters of the 19th century. Born into an underprivileged family, he was discovered in 1868 by the director of the Ecole de Genève, Barthélémy Menn, who took him on as a pupil and introduced him to landscape painting.
In 1872, after completing his training as a painter-decorator, he settled in Geneva and remained there until his death. His first paintings were in the sty... Voir plus >
Ferdinand Hodler (1853-1918), born in Bern, is one of the best known Swiss painters of the 19th century. Born into an underprivileged family, he was discovered in 1868 by the director of the Ecole de Genève, Barthélémy Menn, who took him on as a pupil and introduced him to landscape painting.
In 1872, after completing his training as a painter-decorator, he settled in Geneva and remained there until his death. His first paintings were in the style of Swiss realism by artists such as Albert Anker, Rudolf Koller and Alexandre Calame, but a trip to Spain in 1878 opened up new aesthetic possibilities. From then on, he deliberately subjected the subjects of his passion to composition and abstraction. He replaced his earthy tones with a chromaticism that was light and impressionistic in its beauty, with mostly light grey tones. But it was not until he turned to symbolic art that he became successful. His epic composition, The Night, caused an uproar at the 1891 Champ de Mars Salon in Paris, which drew the attention of Pierre Puvis de Chavannes, one of the masters Hodler admired in the same way that he had been impressed by Gustave Courbet.
Puvis' work not only inspired him to take up the challenge of large-scale wall compositions, it also taught him to deliberately transform colours and forms into essential decorative elements. In terms of iconography, Puvis became the model for the Bernese artist, and his influence inspired him to paint beautiful groups of nude or clothed figures of antiquities, such as his Dialogue with Nature. He was also a committed landscape painter, and from 1890 onwards there was a strong stylisation of his themes, to the extent that his mountain ranges and lakes became metaphors for the passing of time. The paintings Leman and Savoyard Alps, Landscape on Lake Geneva and The Dents du Midi from Chesières demonstrate this transformation.
Sad and ill following the death of his lover Valentine Gode-Darel in 1915. He died on 19 May 1918 in Geneva, leaving behind him unfinished paintings of the city's roads.
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