Ferdinand Hodler

Ferdinand Hodler is Switzerland’s best known painter of his era. His mature work is built on what he called parallelism: repeated figures, mirrored shapes and strong outlines that give his pictures a calm, rhythmic order. His landscapes of Lake Geneva and the Alps use the same idea, with bands of water, mountain and sky.

Born in Bern, he moved to Geneva in 1871 and studied under Barthélemy Menn. He looked closely at Holbein in Basel and at Titian and Velázquez in Madrid. Key works include Night (1890) and Day (1900), and he painted many self portraits and portraits of the people close to him. His work is held in Swiss public collections and in the Musée d’Orsay, the Metropolitan Museum of Art and the Art Institute of Chicago.

In his lake views, look at how the shoreline and clouds echo each other across the canvas.