Biography

Ferdinand Hodler was a Swiss Symbolist painter whose portraits and landscapes focused on the symmetric unity of nature and mystery of human life. Merging the realism of Gustave Courbet and the Post-Impressionist brushstrokes of Paul Gauguin with his own form of Symbolism, the artist created hallmark works, including The Night (1889-1890). “The work of art will bring to light a new order inherent in things, and this will be: the idea of unity,” he once mused. Born on March 14, 1853 in Bern, Switzerland, as a teenager Hodler apprenticed under the landscape painter Ferdinand Sommer in the alpine town of Thun. In 1871, he travelled to Geneva to establish himself as an artist, often copying the works of Hans Holbein, Titian, and Nicolas Poussin as means of teaching himself their techniques. Throughout the latter part of his career, Hodler’s depictions of Swiss patriotism and historic scenes became increasing popular with his countrymen. The artist died on May 19, 1918 in Geneva, Switzerland. Today, his works can be found in the collections of the Art Institute of Chicago in Chicago, the Metropolitan Museum of Art, the Musée d’Orsay in Paris, the Kunstmuseum Basel, and the Neue Pinakothek in Munich, among others.