Ferdinand Holder's last inspired years at Basel exhibit
Ferdinand Hodler’s final Geneva-inspired years at Basel exhibit
JANUARY 27, 2013 BY 0 COMMENTS
Hodler exhibition opening at the Beyeler Foundation in Basel, January 2013 (photo: Paula Dupraz)
BASEL, SWITZERLAND – An exhibit of the late works of Ferdinand Hodler, arguably the most renowned Swiss modern artist, opens to the public Sunday 27 January at the Beyeler Foundation in Riehen, outside Basel.
Hodler, who died in 1918 in Geneva, is heralded by the exhibit as a pioneer of modern painting of international significance.
Landscapes, particularly multiple views of Lake Geneva and nearby Alpine peaks, self-portraits, and a room full of paintings depicting Hodler’s dying mistress, Valentine Godé-Darel, are all part of the show, which runs until 26 May.
In his final years, between 1913 and 1918, Hodler’s work became more radical and abstract, although many of the paintings from this period became iconic to the image of Swiss modern art, as the exhibit’s curator, Ulf Küster explains.
Ferdinand Hodler – 1918, Lake Geneva with Mont Blanc in the Early Morning, oil on canvas, 65 x 91.5 cm, Kunsthaus Zürich, gift of the Holenia Trust in Memory of Joseph H Hirshhorn Photo: © Kunsthaus Zürich
Before succumbing to tuberculosis, Hodler lived in an apartment at 29, Quai du Mont-Blanc in Geneva. Largely confined to his home, he painted the lakeside and mountain views from his balcony.
In these canvasses, he increasingly emphasizes the contours of the landscape and gives an impression of the boundlessness of spaces.
Hodler is quoted in the exhibit’s book: “If I want to express the infinity of a horizontal line of mountains or a lake, I always have to ask myself where it has to start and where I have to cut it off”.
Küster, the curator, told GenevaLunch that Hodler, born in 1853, was very determined in his youth to go to Geneva, which in the 1860s was the “cultural center of Europe”.
He came from a poor background and lost his entire immediate family to tuberculosis by the time he was 18, but managed to eke out a living by producing souvenir landscape paintings, “sold to British tourists”, with “views of the Alps with glaciers and cows” before moving to Geneva and becoming a student of Barthélemy Menn.
Ferdinand Hodler – 1914-15, Lake Geneva with Mont Salève and Swans, oil on canvas, 65 x 85 cm, Kunstmuseum Bern, bequest of Madame Hector Hodler, Geneva, photo: Kunstmuseum Bern
Menn taught at the Musée Rath, Switzerland’s first purpose-built art museum, which at the time had an art school in its basement.
Hodler went to the Rath to copy the paintings, and eventually impressed the art instructor, who, Küster explained, trained him to be a “real artist”. Holder’s transformation, he emphasized, came in Geneva.
Lucid colors, including several shades of blue that he used frequently, as well as a “zoom effect” in which the artist creates an impression of coexisting proximity and distance, are found in Hodler’s famous mountain landscapes.
Some of these are now hanging in the Beyeler’s halls overlooking its outdoor pond, where Claude Monet’s landscapes were hung in the past. Hodler said “Blue is the colour that, like the sky, like the sea, speaks to me of all that is not humdrum, all that is transcendent and magnificent”.
The Beyeler exhibit opens just days after the closing of a Hodler exhibit in New York at the Neue Galerie, a museum dedicated to early 20th century German and Austrian art, where the Swiss painter was presented in the context of his role as an idol of the artists of the Viennese Secession, including Gustav Klimt and Egon Schiele.
The two institutions cooperated in organizing the shows.
Ferdinand Hodler is showing at the Beyeler Foundation from 27 January to 26 May 2013.
Ferdinand Hodler – 1916, The Dents du Midi from Champéry, oil on canvas, 73.5 x 110 cm, Nestlé Art Collection, Photo: © Nestlé Art Collection
Ferdinand Hodler – Landscape near Montana, 1915, oil on canvas, 65 x 80 cm, Hilti Art Foundation, Schaan, Liechtenstein, Photo: Galerie Kornfeld, Bern
