1853-1918 Swiss Ferdinand Hodler Galleries Hodler was born in Berne and grew up in poverty. His father, Jean Hodler, made a meager living as a carpenter; his mother, Marguerite (n??e Neukomm), was from a peasant family. By the time Hodler was eight years old, he had lost his father and two younger brothers to tuberculosis. His mother remarried to a decorative painter, but in 1867 she too died of tuberculosis. Before he was ten, Hodler received training in decorative painting from his stepfather, and was subsequently sent to Thun to apprentice with a local painter, Ferdinand Sommer. Hodler's earliest works were conventional landscapes, which he sold in shops and to tourists. In 1871, at the age of 18, he traveled on foot to Geneva to start a career as a painter. The works of Hodler's early maturity consisted of landscapes, figure compositions and portraits, treated with a vigorous realism. He made a trip to Basel in 1875, where he studied the paintings of Hans Holbein??especially Dead Christ in the Tomb, which influenced Hodler's many treatments of the theme of death. In the last decade of the 19th century his work evolved to combine influences from several genres including symbolism and art nouveau. He developed a style which he called Parallelism, characterized by groupings of figures symmetrically arranged in poses suggesting ritual or dance. In 1884 Hodler met Augustine Dupin (1852?C1909), who became his companion and model for the next several years. Their son, Hector Hodler, was born in 1887. In 1889 Hodler married Bertha Stucki; they were divorced in 1891. Hodler's work in his final phase took on an expressionist aspect with strongly coloured and geometrical figures. Landscapes were pared down to essentials, sometimes consisting of a jagged wedge of land between water and sky. However, the most famous of Hodler's paintings portray scenes in which characters are engaged in everyday activities, such as the famous woodcutter (Der Holzfaller, Mus??e d'Orsay, Paris). This picture went on to appear on the back of the 50 Swiss Franc bank note issued by the Swiss National Bank. In 1898, Hodler married Berthe Jacques. In 1914 he condemned the German atrocities conducted using artillery at Rheims. In retaliation for this, German art museums excluded Hodler's work. In 1908 he met Valentine Gode-Darel, who became his mistress. She was diagnosed with cancer in 1913, and the many hours Hodler spent by her bedside resulted in a remarkable series of paintings documenting her disintegration. Her death in January 1915 affected Hodler greatly. He occupied himself with work; a series of about 20 introspective self-portraits date from 1916. By late 1917 his declining health led him to thoughts of suicide. He died on May 19, 1918 in Geneva leaving behind a number of unfinished works portraying the city.  Related Paintings of Ferdinand Hodler :. | Thunersee mit Stockhornkette | Abendnebel am Thunersee | Apple tree in Blossom | Genfersee mit Mont-Blanc im Morgenlicht | Sonnenuntergang am Genfersee von Caux aus |
Related Artists:
Edward Haytley
British Painter, active 1740-ca.1762,was an English portrait and landscape painter of the 18th century. Little is known about him, but the background of some of his sitters and professional contacts suggest he may have come from Lancashire. Few of his works survive, but he appears to have specialised in the "conversation piece" form popular with the landed gentry of mid-18th century England, a group portrait against an idealised backdrop of the subjects' estates. His works of this form include one of Elizabeth Robinson with her parents, Edward and Elizabeth Montagu, at Sandleford Priory near Hythe, Kent; six portraits of the Stanley family including one of Sir Robert and Lady Bradshaigh in front of Haigh Hall; and two of the Brockman family on its Kent estate, Beachborough, both showing the newly-constructed Temple Pond. One of the latter may include Susanna Highmore, daughter of the portrait painter Joseph Highmore. His best known works are the oil-on-canvas roundels of Bethlem and Chelsea Hospitals donated in 1740, at the behest of William Hogarth, to the Foundling Hospital, London. His last recorded work was a conversation piece of William Milner, second baronet, dated 1764, and he is assumed to have died shortly after this date
Jean-Baptiste Capronnier
(1814-1891) was a Belgian stained glass painter. Born in Brussels in 1814, he had much to do with the modern revival of glass-painting, and first made his reputation by his study of the old methods of workmanship, and his clever restorations of old examples, and copies made for the Brussels archaeological museum. He carried out windows for various churches in Brussels (including the Église Royale Sainte-Marie), Bruges, Amsterdam and elsewhere, and his work was commissioned also for France, Italy and England. At the Paris Exhibition of 1855 he won the only medal given for glasspainting. He died in Brussels in 1891.
Frank Alfred Bicknell
1866-1943