EARTH, WATER, AIR

AROUND 1890, LANDSCAPE PAINTING CEASED TO BE A MERE MIRROR OF REALITY: FOR HODLER, IT BECAME A PROJECTION OF INNER ORDER.

While artists in the late 19th century experimented with Naturalism, Symbolism and Art Nouveau, Ferdinand Hodler forged a style that became central to Swiss identity, and was seen abroad as a precursor to modernist pictorial thought. His landscapes fused the contemplative depth of Symbolism with a pared-down, formally aware visual language, one that hinted at forthcoming abstraction. By circa 1890, his art was part of a discourse viewing landscape not merely as a depiction of the external world, but as a canvas for inner order, artistic autonomy and spiritual experience.

Hodler presents the Mont Salève, a ridge in the Savoy pre-Alps just a few kilometres from Geneva. In raking light, the steep, bare rock face appears especially sculptural. Hodler arranges a broad perspective: you look up at the cliff from below, yet see the river in the foreground almost from above. The green-blue water finds its counterpart in the autumnal reds of the hillside foliage; the rock itself shimmers in complementary yellow and violet tones. Such striking colour contrasts typify Hodler’s post-1890 work, perhaps influenced by exhibitions he attended in Paris at that time. ‘Salève in autumn’ has been widely exhibited, including in 2004 in Geneva and Zurich.

Also close to Geneva lies the Swiss commune of Onex, and the road leading there became the subject of several of Hodler’s studies. A row of young, flowering chestnut trees is the central motif, while the road itself guides the eye in ‘perspective progression’ towards the horizon. There the Alpine massifs rise, barely distinguishable from the sky in a blue haze. In Hodler’s sketchbooks of circa 1890 are numerous comparable views aimed at symbolic effect. In these years he began to endow his compositions with parallels and symmetries, repetitions and reflections – strategies to reinforce the ‘unity of the enitre picture’.

CUNO
AMIET

Chrysanthemums, 1908
Oil on canvas
61 × 55 cm
Estimate:
CHF 130 000 / 200 000