Lakes, peaks and Alpine rhythms · Swiss symbolism

From Lake Geneva to Jungfrau, Hodler simplifies reliefs, clouds and reflections to give the Alps a monumental and almost musical presence.

Ferdinand Hodler was born in Bern in 1853 and settled very young in Geneva, where he died in 1918. Alpine landscapes accompanied his entire career: Salève, Stockhorn, Eiger, Monch, Jungfrau and the banks of Lake Geneva became the motifs of a research based on repetition and symmetry. Hodler not only copies a panorama. He orders the crest lines, distributes the cloud masses and transforms the reflection of the lake into a counterpoint to the sky. This organization, which he calls parallelism, gives the landscape a rhythmic unity. In late views, perspective is further refined: the mountains seem to float above bands of mist and water. Geographic precision and construction symbolist thus unite in a calm, ample and immediately recognizable image. The selection "Alps and mountains of Ferdinand Hodler" notably compares Rising mist on the Savoyard Alps - Ferdinand Hodler and The Grindelwald glacier - Ferdinand Hodler. His reading favors color.

In Hodler, the mountain is not a setting: its repeated lines become the deep rhythm that holds the sky, water and earth together.