Ferdinand Hodler

Der Wasserfall Pissevache (Kopie nach François Diday)

The «Pissevache» Waterfall (Copy After François Diday)

c. 1872

Ferdinand Hodler

Gewitter bei der Handeck (Kopie nach Alexandre Calame)

Storm Near the Handeck (Copy After Alexandre Calame)

c. 1872

Ferdinand Hodler completed his initial training with the landscape painter Ferdinand Sommer in 1870. Two years later he moved to Geneva, where he was granted permission to copy the paintings at the Musée Rath. He met the painter Barthélemy Menn and started studying under him at the Écoles de Dessins.

The «Pissevache» Waterfall and Storm Near the Handeck are examples of the copies he made at the Musée Rath. The first painting is by François Diday and the second by Alexandre Calame, both prominent members of the early 19th-century Genevan landscape-­painting school. Their landscapes were generally inspired by the high mountains and marked by atmospheres dominated by the ruggedness of the alpine terrain. The grandeur of the peaks is combined with a menacing sensation of untamed nature.

The rocky peaks of the Swiss Alps and the gentler peaks of the French Pre-Alps will be among the favourite subjects of Hodler’s future landscape paintings.

Ferdinand Hodler

Les Petits-Lacs

The Petits-Lacs

c. 1878

Hodler painted this work between the end of his studies and his trip to Spain, during which he would gain the necessary experience to be recognized as an artist in his own right. This landscape documents his early exploration of symmetry, which is one of the pillars of his aesthetic theory known as «paral­lelism». The others are the simplification and repetition of shapes and colours.

In the foreground, a young boy can be seen fishing. Although the figure has not yet completely disappeared into the scene, it is nonetheless incidental; its presence secondary to the centrality of the poplars and the reflections they create in the water.

Ferdinand Hodler

Alpenlandschaft (Das Stockhorn)

Alpine Landscape (The Stockhorn)

1882/1883

Hodler won first prize for this painting at the 4th Concours Calame in 1883. Two types of competitions were held in Geneva: one was dedicated to landscape painting, the other to figure painting. The rather generic theme for 1883 was «A painting depicting an alpine location».

Hodler chose the Stockhorn mountain range, depicted in spring with its peaks still covered in snow. It was the first time he had focused on this subject in the region of Thun, in the canton of Berne. In the foreground, a reed-bed grows on the edge of the Amsoldingersee, with the reflection of the mountains visible in the water. The midground, occupied by an expanse of meadows that culminates in the peak of the Eggweidberg, guides the eye towards the true alpine subject that completes the composition. The reeds and the jagged rockfaces of the mountains form vertical lines, while the different levels of the ground, the bands of fog, and the clouds trace horizontal lines across the landscape.

This is Hodler’s first large-format work depicting a high-mountain scene, in which we can already recognize formal devices that would become constant features in his future landscapes.

Filippo Franzoni

Il Duomo di Milano

The Milan Cathedral

1879–1880

The work depicts a man and two women on the roof of the Milan Cathedral, enjoying the view of the city from above. The various shades of yellow ochre of the architecture contrast with the intense blue of the sky, giving the scene a peculiar luminosity.

The work is considered among Franzoni’s earliest works, painted while he was still studying at the Brera Academy of Fine Arts in Milan, which he attended from 1876 to 1884. The large area devoted to the building establishes the work as an example of architectural perspective painting, subject of an academic course, while the three posed figures place it within the sphere of genre painting.

Filippo Franzoni

La Processione

The Procession

1880–1881

The subject of the painting is the procession that took place on 14 August 1880 to mark the fourth centenary of the apparition of the Virgin Mary to Brother Bartholomeo of Ivrea, the event to which the foundation of the sanctuary of the Madonna del Sasso in Orselina is attributed.

This work was also made when Franzoni was still a student at the Brera Academy of Fine Arts in Milan. It depicts the procession descending to Locarno from the sanctuary, at the top of the painting, passing the stations of the cross. In the foreground on the right, a group of women and young girls watch it go by. Their clothing contrasts with the festive garments of the participants in the procession. The young woman’s proud, almost defiant stance, reminiscent of Emilio Gola’s washerwomen, also suggests the different social and religious affiliations of the two groups.

Filippo Franzoni

Tombe romane a Concordia

Roman Tombs in Concordia

c. 1887

Franzoni made this painting on a visit to Portogruaro, during a trip to Venice in 1887 when he participated in the National Art Exhibition held in the city. It depicts the Sepolcreto dei Militi [soldiers’ burial ground] archaeological site that was discovered in 1873 and where excavations were conducted until 1876, which formed the basis for one of the oldest archaeological museums in Italy, opened in Portogruaro in 1888.

It is very likely that Franzoni did not see the view he painted in person but instead worked from contemporary photographs. The subject is depicted against the light and the composition is marked by distinct horizontal bands. The flowering meadow in the foreground is followed by an area of water from which emerge a series of tombs, a grassy expanse, a cluster of houses and a vast sky dotted with clouds that are reflected in the water, giving the composition a romantic atmosphere.

Ferdinand Hodler

Bildnis einer Unbekannten (Die Genesende)

Portrait of an Unknown Woman (The Convalescent)

c. 1885

Hodler depicts a young woman whose pained expression and weary pose convey her precarious health. He has foregone all attention to detail, and the composition is characterized by a series of planes and uniformly applied areas of colour. The background is marked by two monochromatic zones: namely the pink cloth covering the bed and the light brown colour of the wall. In the foreground, the red shawl wrapped around the young woman’s shoulders catches the eye. Her face is modelled by a delicate touch of light and the contours are traced with a thin dark line.

Hodler later dated the work to 1879; however, for stylistic reasons, it should be placed around the mid-1880s, closer to his other portraits with similar features.

Ferdinand Hodler

Selbstbildnis

Self-Portrait

1892

This self-portrait is one of many that Hodler made during his career. It dates from 1892, the year in which the artist achieved international renown, successfully showing his work again in Paris, at the first Rosa+Croce exhibition and the Champ-de-Mars exhibition. He portrays himself as a satisfied man, proud of his accolades, yet also relaxed and full of confidence in the future.

Ferdinand Hodler

Bildnis Louise Jacques (?) (Mädchen mit Mohnblume)

Portrait of Louise Jacques (?) (Girl with Poppy Flower)

c. 1892

The model for this portrait was probably Louise Jacques, who also appears in some of Hodler’s large-format compositions with figures. A woman sitting at a table, reading or holding a flower, is a recurrent theme in the art he produced during this period.

In this case, the model is depicted in a frontal pose, illuminated from the left, with the light falling slightly from above. In the foreground, her hands holding the glass with the poppy are clasped to form a semi-circle. The bright red flower contrasts with her black dress. Her slightly tilted face is the sole disruption to the perfect symmetry. The interplay of the parts in shadow and the parts in light, the facial expression, and the simplicity of the lines that trace the young woman’s body and clothing make this one of Hodler’s most sophisticated and accomplished portraits.

Filippo Franzoni

Punta di Burbaglio

c. 1886

In this painting, we can see the inlet of the port of Muralto, the point of Burbaglio and, in the background, the snow-capped mountains with Mount Camoghè towering over them.

The work can be dated fairly precisely due to the absence of the chimney of the Bacilieri spinning mill, which was demolished between late 1885 and early 1886.

Franzoni’s composition is characterized by the oval of the port, the clear diagonal lines and the bold horizontal ones marking the meeting of the surface of the water and the slope of the mountains, and the boundary between the peaks and the sky. The work displays the artist’s early interest in simplifying form and colour, as well as the eschewal of detail that is characteristic of many of his paintings.

Filippo Franzoni

Ritratto della madre

Portrait of The Mother

1891

Franzoni painted the portrait of his mother at a crucial time in his career and his art.

In 1890 he had shown his work at an exhibition in Switzerland for the first time, which provided the opportunity for his first contact with the production of his Swiss colleagues (and vice versa).

This portrait constitutes one of the pinnacles of his quest for formal simplification and synthesis, revealing his knowledge of the application en aplat of areas of well-defined colour deriving from the work of the Nabis.

The work is composed of a series of successive planes, commencing with the white newspaper page that seems to create a gash in the canvas. It is followed by those marked by the blue of the dress and, in the background, the series of objects resting on the mantelpiece. As in other cases, the rendering of the whole takes priority over attention to detail, and the work is based on a photograph taken by the artist, who had received his first camera as a gift precisely from his mother a few years earlier.

Filippo Franzoni

Autoritratto

Self-Portrait

[c. 1900–1903]

Filippo Franzoni

Autoritratto

Self-Portrait

[c. 1903–1905]

Franzoni’s work is marked by several self-portraits, among which the two featured in the exhibition stand out for their expressive power and introspective insight. In both cases, it is the eyes that betray the artist’s state of mind, conveying concern mixed with anguish.

The slightly diagonal and full-frontal poses of the face are classic types in the pictorial translation of the self-portrait. The bold, at times textural brushstrokes and the figure that seems to dissolve into the background – elements already found in Portrait of a Young Lady with Mantilla – are reminiscent of the portraiture of the Lombard Scapigliati artists, with whom Franzoni was in contact during his time in Milan.

Ferdinand Hodler

Sommerlandschaft bei Interlaken

Summer Landscape Near Interlaken

c. 1888

In the background of this particularly luminous landscape we can see the perennially snow-covered peaks of the Mönch and Jungfrau. The two mountains, which became legendary in part due to Hodler’s paintings, are partially hidden by the Änderberg, served since 1893 by one of the most famous mountain railways: the Schynige Platte Railway. Hodler was particularly fascinated by this modern means of transport, that allowed people to reach high altitudes and discover new vistas over the alpine world.

Ferdinand Hodler

Kleine Platane

Little Plane Tree

c. 1891

There are numerous paintings whose main subject is a solitary tree, connecting the elements of earth and sky. Hodler treats it as if it were a figure, placing it at the centre of a symmetrical composition along both the vertical and the horizontal axes.

«I made a portrait of a tree», he declared. In his opinion, each state of mind has its own gestures, and a figure’s outer appearance must reflect its inner self. Similarly, the portrayal of a natural element offers an opportunity to highlight its expressive power: joy, sadness, melancholy, strength and fragility become sentiments conveyed through its position or extension in the landscape.

Ferdinand Hodler

Die Strasse nach Evordes

The Road to Evordes

c. 1890

In Hodler’s concept of painting, the emotion experienced when viewing a landscape must be elicited solely by the artist’s choice of colours and compositional lines. Indeed, the human figures still present in his early paintings have completely disappeared here.

Hodler tries to reproduce the internal order of nature by means of repetition and symmetry. These elements are present in The Road to Evordes and would become increasingly pronounced over the following years. The entire composition is marked by the presence of a road that divides it in two, accompanying the eye deep into the landscape. On either side, a series of trees and the sequence of their trunks intensify the sense of the symmetrical construction of the whole. This rigorous approach stems from Hodler’s desire to objectify the relationship with the observed natural world, giving the landscape a dimension that goes beyond the natural.

Filippo Franzoni

Bosco dell’Isolino – autunno

Isolino Wood – Autumn

c. 1888–1891

Trees are a constant feature in Franzoni’s landscapes and the sparser their presence, the more symbolic they become. The delicate foliage silhouetted against the sky emphasizes the vital presence of the backlit trunks. Here they seem to take the form of sinuous dancing figures.

The paint applied in two almost monochromatic areas to form the background contrasts with the small, rapid dots in the foreground. In addition to being a painter, Franzoni was also a talented cellist; the chromatic vibrations of his landscapes seem to add a musical dimension to nature.

Filippo Franzoni

Lodano, Valle Maggia, a sera

Lodano, Maggia Valley, in the Evening

c. 1897

The work depicts the road leading to the village of Lodano, in the Maggia valley.

The painting itself was preceded by a series of photographs that Franzoni used to select the viewpoint for the landscape. The path draws the eye towards the cluster of houses and the church. The square openings in the buildings create a play of geometric forms that give the composition rhythm. In the foreground some peasant women are working in the fields, their figures tending to vanish into the vastness of the landscape.

This work is one of the rare large-format paintings made by the artist expressly for public display. In fact he exhibited it for the first time in 1897 at the Permanente in Milan, and a final time at the Munich International in 1905, where it was purchased by the Fondazione Antonio Caccia of Lugano, thus becoming part of the collection of the first art museum in Canton Ticino.

Ferdinand Hodler

Am Ufer der Maggia am Abend

On the Shores of the Maggia

in the Evening

1893

Hodler stayed in Ticino from 15 to 28 February 1893, painting at least six landscapes of the lake and the surroundings of Locarno, and one of Lake Lugano. The reason why he travelled south of the Alps is unknown; however, it is now certain that Hodler and Franzoni spent some time together during these two weeks and that the latter took him to his favourite places to paint.

In On the Shores of the Maggia in the Evening Hodler adopts an open type of landscape, arranged in a sequence of planes that commence from the shore and rise towards the sky. In the foreground, the presence of the shore is barely hinted at, and prefigures his later landscapes with elliptical compositions, of which the views of Lake Geneva from Chexbres are the most accomplished.

Hodler has depicted the landscape at sunset, letting the reflections of the mountains (e.g., the pyramidal shape of Mount Borgna) and the rocks in the water bounce off each other to create an interplay of forms between the upper and lower halves of the painting.

This type of view resembles a freeze-frame of a landscape observed in motion, for example from the window of a train, the means of transport that Hodler used to travel and paint in these natural settings.

Ferdinand Hodler

Landschaft im Tessin

Landscape in Tessin

1893

This landscape also dates from Hodler’s stay in Locarno in February 1893.

The view is looking southwest from the countryside around Solduno. In the background, the peaks of Mount Ghiridone, still covered in snow, are shrouded in a layer of clouds, with the deep blue sky above. In the foreground, the tracks of a path lead the eye through an arid landscape, where nature still bears the signs of winter. The movement in depth is combined with a composition formed by layering different landscape elements: the meadow, the hill, the rocks, the clouds, and the sky.

This type of landscape, with a path that gradually recedes and ends against a mountain, is a frequent feature of Hodler’s paintings.

Ferdinand Hodler

Der Buchenwald (Le Bois de Châtelaine)

The Beech Forest

1885, revised in 1890 and c. 1894

Hodler entered this painting, unsuccessfully, in the 5th Concours Calame in 1885. The theme that year was «The interior of a forest, with undergrowth, the effect of the morning sun, and a group of woodcutters, composed of four figures».

The jury criticized the work mainly because, in its opinion, the unity of the depiction was marred by a lack of hierarchy between the various elements. However, it is precisely the simplification and repetition of shapes and colours in a non-hierarchical manner that forms the basis of the compositional unity sought by Hodler and subsequently adopted as a pictorial model by numerous Swiss artists. Today, this work is considered one of the emblematic examples of his theory of «parallelism».

Over the years, Hodler repainted the picture several times, eliminating three of the four woodcutters and sketching in several other figures, camouflaging them among the trees.

Ferdinand Hodler

Genfersee am Abend von Chexbres aus

Lake Geneva in the Evening from Chexbres

1895

In 1895 Hodler won joint second prize for this work, together with Franzoni’s Maggia Delta, at the 10th Concours Calame in Geneva. That year’s theme was «A landscape painting, depicting a Swiss lake, with a foreground of land, riverbed, rocks, walls, buildings, etc., of the competitor’s choice».

This is the first version of Lake Geneva viewed from Chexbres and the first elliptical landscape that Hodler painted, which was followed by numerous variations a decade later. In fact, the view between Montreux and Lausanne, with the bay of Cully and the Savoy Alps in the background, was one of the artist’s favourite vistas.

The roofs of the houses are just visible on the lower edge of the landscape, allowing us to envisage the steep slope leading down to the lakeshore. The bare branches reaching upwards transform the trees into skeletal presences, while the recent sunset tinges the sky pink and ochre, reflected in the broad expanse of water.

Among the precedents for this type of landscape, we can certainly include the work entitled On the Shores of the Maggia in the Evening, painted during his stay in Locarno in 1893.

Filippo Franzoni

Saleggi di Isolino

[c. 1891–1894]

Saleggi di Isolino in Locarno was one of Franzoni’s favourite subjects and is depicted here on a cold winter’s day. The desolate aspect of nature is underscored by a grove of bare trees. The silence and stillness shrouding the landscape are interrupted by the foaming waters of the Maggia river emptying into Lake Maggiore. The shores of the lake form two clear diagonal lines across the composition. This is one of the artist’s most striking landscapes in terms of its degree of formal synthesis and chromatic simplification, comparable only to his Portrait of The Mother.

In 1894, when he was exhibiting his work at the Swiss National Exhibition of Fine Arts in Bern, the critic of Der Bund newspaper wrote «Filippo Franzoni’s winter landscape […] is little understood, because we expect bright colours in landscapes south of the Alps. In this case, the painter, relentlessly true to himself, has not made the slightest concession to this expectation. His work appears to have been painted using just three colours, one shade of grey prevails, and any captivating charm has been deliberately avoided with such severity and harshness as to repel viewers, who do not take the trouble to examine the painting more closely. But for those who do take the trouble and also keep the right distance from the painting, the landscape immediately acquires merit. In particular, the foaming waters of the Maggia as they flow into the lake are expertly rendered; nonetheless, the painting remains an icy, grey winter scene. But does it strive to be anything else? Franzoni seems to be one of those artists who, for his own artistic conscience above all, must live and paint heedless of public opinion».

Filippo Franzoni

Delta della Maggia

Maggia Delta

c. 1895

This work won Franzoni joint second prize with Ferdinand Hodler’s Lake Geneva in the Evening from Chexbres, at the 10th Concours Calame in Geneva in 1895. The theme of the competition, open to all Swiss artists, was «a landscape painting, depicting a Swiss lake, with a level ground of a riverbed, rocks, land, walls, buildings, etc., of the competitor’s choice in the foreground». Franzoni fully complied with this theme, choosing a view of Lake Maggiore, looking from the shore towards the Bosco Isolino, placing two boats with a fisherman in the foreground and adding a glimpse of some boulders at the water’s edge. The work is characterized by the extensive presence of the shade of turquoise blue used for both the lake and the mountains on the shore opposite Gambarogno. In the midst of this expansive landscape, in which attention has been paid to both detail and overall effect, a lone boat is returning to the harbour, while a few cows graze in the meadows of Isolino.

This is the painting that finally got Franzoni noticed and admired by critics and colleagues north of the Alps, and he showed it at the most important exhibitions – including the Universal Exposition in Paris in 1900 – before it was purchased by the Swiss Confederation the following year.

Filippo Franzoni

L’Isolino con bambine

Isolino with Young Girls

c. 1900

Franzoni depicted his nieces playing hand in hand in the shade of the trees of the Bosco Isolino. This day is also recorded in a series of photographs taken by the artist.

The girls are two simple white patches, while the trees create a pattern of vertical parallel lines in the composition, through which the blue of the lake can be glimpsed. A log placed diagonally in the foreground breaks the linear rhythm of the other logs positioned further away. The rather thinly applied colour dotted with small brush strokes, the juxtaposition of yellow and green, and the spaces between the leaves left white bathe this view of nature in a crisp, bright light.

Ferdinand Hodler

Anbetung

Worship

1894

In this painting, Hodler focuses on the kneeling child, at the centre of one of his large compositions with figures entitled Der Auserwählte (the chosen one). The model is his son, Hector, born in 1887 from his relationship with Augustine Dupin.

In the large composition the boy is kneeling in front of a small plant, his face turned upwards, surrounded by six winged female figures hovering in the air. In this painting the symbolic narrative device is absent; everything is concentrated in the boy’s gesture and praying pose. This is one of Hodler’s works closest to the theories of the Rosa+Croce, at whose Parisian salon he had exhibited in 1891.

Worship was also the first painting purchased in 1897 by Oscar Miller, a collector from Solothurn and late 19th-century pioneer of Swiss modern art collecting. His collection also comprised two works by Franzoni. One featured a rainbow as its subject. It is most likely a smaller version of the first painting of After the Storm, wich is located beneath the same-titled work displayed in the same room.

Ferdinand Hodler

Die Empfindung

The Emotion

c. 1909

Four figures, each with their own gestures and poses, move in light, dance-like movements in a barely sketched landscape, dotted with a few sparse groups of red flowers. The first version of this subject dates from around 1905. This painting does not aspire to be realistic; instead, the artist employs a high degree of stylization to accentuate its decorative nature.

Hodler’s oeuvre includes numerous depictions of moving female figures, alone or in a group. His engagement with the pictorial transposition of movement and rhythm hints at his interest in the theories developed in the field of rhythm by Émile Jaque-Dalcroze, particularly regarding the teaching of the perception of music through movement. Dalcroze contributed greatly to free and expressive dance, which developed rapidly from the second decade of the 20th century and had one of its leading international centres at Monte Verità in Ascona, founded in 1913 by Rudolf von Laban.

Ferdinand Hodler

Genfersee mit Savoyer Alpen

Lake Geneva with the Savoie Alps

c. 1906

Ferdinand Hodler

Genfersee mit Savoyer Alpen

Lake Geneva with the Savoie Alps

1911

Hodler has depicted Lake Geneva with the Savoy Alps in the background from two different points of view and perspectives: one from higher up, the other closer to the water’s edge. The vertical format accentuates the sense of depth of the landscape. In the first case, the contrast between the sunlit mountainsides and those in shadow gives volume to the peaks. A light mist blurs the boundary between water and land. In the second, the horizontal format intensifies the openness of the landscape. Although barely outlined, the silhouettes of the peaks that make up the mountain range are still clearly recognizable: from left to right, the Dent d’Oche, followed by Mont Ouzon, Pointe de Tréchauffé and Mont Billiat.

Ferdinand Hodler

Der Niesen von Heustrich aus

The Niesen From Heustrich

1910

The distinctive pyramidal shape of the Niesen had caught Hodler’s attention as far back as the mid-1870s. In his early 20th-century landscapes the shape of the mountain inspired compositions with simplified lines and offered the opportunity to play with symmetry along both the vertical and horizontal axes by means of reflections in Lake Thun.

In this case, the imposing mountain is placed at the centre of a baroque swirl of clouds that adds a decorative element to the composition. It also illustrates Hodler’s desire to monumentalize and objectively reconstruct natural elements, which after 1910 can be found in landscapes with increasingly abstract features.

Filippo Franzoni

Narciso

Narcissus

[c. 1903–1905]

The title of the work identifies the subject: Narcissus, standing at the edge of a pond as he admires his own reflection in the water. Franzoni has appropriated the mythological scene and transposed it onto his own landscape by setting it in one of the many small clearings dotted with pools typical of the area of the Maggia river delta. The tree trunks and the silhouette of the young man give rhythm to the space. The repetition of vertical lines confuses the elements of the painting, to the point that the figure sometimes eludes the eye to become a trunk or a tree. In an atmo­sphere of intimate communion with nature, Narcissus merges and becomes one with it, aware that he is only a tiny part of an immensely larger whole.

Filippo Franzoni

Apparizioni – Saleggi con figure danzanti

Apparitions – Saleggi with Dancing Figures

[c. 1905–1908]

The painting is marked by figures, some seated, others lying in the grass or dancing in the woods. The setting seems vibrant and emotionally dense, a feeling reinforced by the vivid, textured application of colour.

The figures dancing around the water contrast with the dark, silent, motionless silhouette in the foreground.

Franzoni was one of the few Ticino natives that frequented the Monte Verità colony in Ascona, staying there for a few weeks in 1904 to follow a vegetarian diet for therapeutic reasons. The presence in his landscapes of figures dancing in a circle holding hands evokes the eurythmic dance circle that was practised on the «Monescia» hill where the colony had settled.

Filippo Franzoni

Dopo il temporale

After the Storm

[c. 1898–1900]

The surviving version of After the Storm was painted over an early one exhibited in 1898, discovered by x-rays, which is documented by a contemporary black-and-white photograph. It is difficult to say with certainty whether this is how the painting exhibited at the 1900 Universal Exposition in Paris appeared, or whether the artist intervened on the canvas at a later date. In any case, it stands out among Franzoni’s oeuvre as the only large-format work in which he allowed himself liberties in the painting that he otherwise reserved for much smaller formats. This lake landscape depicted after a thunderstorm is characterized by a swirl of colours and brushstrokes that make it difficult to interpret the subject: everything is congealed, mixed up and seems to revolve around a sort of black hole located at the centre of the canvas in which matter appears destined to vanish.