Ferdinand Hodler

The Swiss painter Ferdinand Hodler (1853-1918), using stylized, awkwardly gesturing figures in conjunction with simplified color, overcame realistic and impressionist conventions and infused his works with an intellectual, symbolic content.

Ferdinand Hodler was born in Bern on March 14, 1853. His childhood was characterized by poverty, sickness, and death. His father died soon after Hodler's birth and his mother died when he was 13; nine of her children likewise died early. Hodler's first training as an artist was in the workshop of his stepfather; in 1867 he began to study with a local landscape painter. In search of better training, he went to Geneva in 1871, where he painted signs while learning French; until 1876 he studied under Barthélémy Menn, who introduced him to the works of Camille Corot, Eugène Delacroix, and J. A. D. Ingres. Hodler was greatly impressed by the paintings of Hans Holbein the Younger, and he studied the theories of Albrecht Dürer, Leonardo da Vinci, and Vitruvius in his search for answers to the artistic analysis of nature. Hodler's artistic formation formally ended in 1878, when he went to Madrid to study the work of Peter Paul Rubens and Diego Velázquez at the Prado Museum.

Hodler's paintings of the 1880s demonstrate a dichotomy of purpose. Although he worked in an impressionist or realistic manner, he sought to impart an intellectual or emotional content that transcended visible reality. In his Prayer in the Canton Bern (1880-1881) he carefully rendered peasants caught up in fervent prayer, simultaneously representing his own spiritual crises and his desire to flee industrialized modern society and find refuge in an innocent, ideal environment.

By 1886 Hodler had begun to paint in a sharply delineated, harsh style touched with rustic awkwardness and simplicity, as in the Courageous Woman. His paintings took on a more emotional quality as they represented moods of anger, despair, or yearning. Night (1889), completed after a serious psychological crisis, marked the final break with realism; it linked him with the symbolist movement then spreading throughout Europe. Night, with its enigmatic dreamlike scene, large format, monumental figures, tendency toward flatness, and repetition of similar colors and forms—a system of composition Hodler named "parallelism"—is characteristic of all Hodler's mature works.

These mystical, antirealistic paintings depicting an escape from the bourgeois cares of modern life gained Hodler first notoriety and then popularity. In 1900 he received a Gold Medal at the Paris World's Fair, and in 1912 he was made an officer of the French Foreign Legion. In Germany he received commissions to create monumental patriotic murals, culminating in the Jena Students Entering the 1813 War of Liberation and the Reformation Oath of Hanover on July 26, 1533 (1913-1914).

Hodler died on May 19, 1918, in Geneva. His formal vocabulary was too personal to act as a major influence, but his antirealistic attitude quickened the demise of naturalism and impressionism.

Further Reading

There is a short biography of Holder in Werner Haftmann, Painting in the Twentieth Century (trans., 2 vols., 1961; rev. ed. 1965). See also Peter Meyer, Art in Switzerland: From the Earliest Times to the Present Day (trans. 1946), and John Canaday, Mainstreams of Modern Art (1962).

Additional Sources

Hirsh, Sharon L., Ferdinand Hodler, New York: Braziller, 1982.

Selz, Peter Howard, Ferdinand Hodler, Berkeley, University Art Museum, 1972. □

Hodler, Ferdinand (1853–1918). Swiss painter, born in Berne and active mainly in Geneva. He ranks alongside Arnold Böcklin (1827–1901) as the outstanding Swiss artist of his time, but his early work was rather unimaginatively naturalistic, his landscapes amounting to ambitious colour postcards for tourists. However, in 1890, with his brooding Night ( Kunstmuseum, Berne), Hodler began a sudden change of style. This picture, depicting a black-shrouded, phantom-like presence amid a number of semi-naked sleeping figures, set the pattern for his most characteristic works—allegories featuring stately groups of flat, stylized figures composed into a rhythmic and repetitive pattern of lines, forms, and colours. Often the same basic figure is repeated throughout the picture with only slight variations. Hodler called his method ‘Parallelism'; he used the same principles in scenes from Swiss history and landscapes. By the turn of the century he had become immensely popular throughout the German-speaking world and in 1904 a group of 31 of his paintings was the main attraction at the Vienna Sezession's international exhibition. George Heard Hamilton writes that ‘This occasion, when Hodler was one of a group that included Munch, Gallen-Kallela, Cuno Amiet, and Jan Thorn Prikker, may be considered the climax of Symbolist painting. In the year that followed Gauguin's death and preceded the first Fauve manifestation these men were the acknowledged leaders of modern art in Norway, Finland, Switzerland, and Germany.’ In the last decade of his life Hodler returned more to landscape painting: ‘In spare lines and a few vivid colours, comparable to the best Fauve work, he set forth his mystique of the Alpine landscape’ ( Hamilton). As well as being a major figure of Symbolism and Art Nouveau, Hodler has been seen as one of the harbingers of Expressionism.

Hodler, Ferdinand (b Berne, 14 Mar. 1853; d Geneva, 19 May 1918). Swiss painter, active mainly in Geneva. He ranks alongside Böcklin as the outstanding Swiss artist of his time, but his early work was rather unimaginatively naturalistic, his landscapes amounting to ambitious colour postcards for tourists. However, in 1890, with his brooding Night (Kunstmuseum, Berne), Hodler began a sudden change of style. This picture, depicting a black-shrouded, phantom-like presence amid a number of semi-naked sleeping figures, set the pattern for his most characteristic works—allegories featuring stately groups of flat, stylized figures composed into a rhythmic and repetitive pattern of lines, forms, and colours. Often the same basic figure is repeated throughout the picture with only slight variations. Hodler called his method ‘Parallelism’; he used the same principles in scenes from Swiss history and landscapes. By the turn of the century he had become immensely popular throughout the German-speaking world and in 1904 a group of 31 of his paintings was the main attraction at the Vienna Sezession's international exhibition. In the last decade of his life he returned more to landscape painting. As well as being a major figure of Symbolism and Art Nouveau, Hodler has been seen as one of the harbingers of Expressionism.

Hodler, Ferdinand (1853–1918). Swiss painter, born in Berne and active mainly in Geneva. He ranks alongside Böcklin as the outstanding Swiss artist of his time, but his early work was rather unimaginatively naturalistic, his landscapes amounting to ambitious colour postcards for tourists. However, in 1890, with his brooding Night (Kunst museum, Berne), Hodler began a sudden change of style. This picture, depicting a black-shrouded, phantom-like presence amid a number of semi-naked sleeping figures, set the pattern for his most characteristic works—allegories featuring stately groups of flat, stylized figures composed into a rhythmic and repetitive pattern of lines, forms, and colours. Often the same basic figure is repeated throughout the picture with only slight variations. Hodler called his method ‘Parallelism’; he used the same principles in scenes from Swiss history and landscapes. By the turn of the century he had become immensely popular throughout the German-speaking world. In the last decade of his life he returned more to landscape painting. As well as being a major figure of Symbolism and Art Nouveau, Hodler has been seen as one of the harbingers of Expressionism.

Ferdinand Hodler , 1853–1918, Swiss painter and lithographer. At first he worked in an ornamental style akin to art nouveau. Inclined toward mysticism, he visited Paris in 1891 and was attracted to the symbolist group around Gauguin. Hodler then evolved his own powerful means of expression with strong rhythmic patterns and a tight linear structure, which he called parallelism. He influenced the expressionists of the next generation. Characteristic paintings are Eurythmy (1894–95) and The Woodcutter (both: Bern).