History of Art: Ferdinand Hodler

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Ferdinand Hodler

Ferdinand Hodler

(1853-1918)

(b Berne, 14 March 1853; d Geneva, 19 May 1918).

Swiss painter. He came from a poor family and lost both of his parents at an early age. He received his first training from Ferdinand Sommer (1822–1901), a painter from Thun who produced lake and mountain landscape views for tourists. In 1871 or 1872 Hodler moved to Geneva to attend lectures in natural science at the Collège de Genève and to copy paintings by Alexandre Calame and François Diday in the museum there. In 1873 he became a pupil of Barthélemy Menn at the Ecole des Beaux-Arts in Geneva and while there undertook an intensive study of Durer’s writings on proportions. In 1878 he travelled to Madrid, spending almost a year there, and was strongly influenced by the Spanish landscape and by the works of such masters as Titian, Poussin, Claude, Velázquez and Goya in the Museo del Prado. He returned to Switzerland in 1879, having learnt to lighten his colour.