FERDINAND HODLER (1853-1918)
La Pointe d'Andey (1,877 m - 6,158 ft)
France (Haute-Savoie)
In La pointe d'Andey, vallée de l'Arve, 1909, oil on canvas, Musée d'Orsay, Paris
The painting
Painted in 1909 and exhibited in 1912 in Munich under the title Landscape, this painting of the Swiss Ferdinand Hodler is today entitled La Pointe d'Andey, Vallée de l'Arve. The location of the motif has been made possible by the very precise representation of this alpine relief. However, if the design of the mountain ridge is scrupulously mimetic, the rest of the pictorial surface is treated like a very constructed painting. Here, no place given to the anecdote, no animal or human presence.
Three strata of clouds extend from the plateau to the summit. They evoke increasing altitude, but they also introduce a game with forms. The first two cloud layers are parallel to the horizontal ground, the highest one follows the curves of the mountain. A gradient of bruises establishes a sensitive link between the light base and the dark summit of the alpine relief. The valley is marked by a soft green and the azure by a blue sky. This painting, which tends to decorative, is directly evoking the Japanese print.
The mountain
The Pointe d'Andey (1,877 m - 6,158 ft) is a mountain of Haute-Savoie, France. It lies in the Bornes Massif range. Balcony suspended over the valley of the Arve, the Pointe d'Andey is an ideal goal for hikes early in the season or when the snow prohibits the escapades on higher summits. Its location allows a dominant view of all the surrounding peaks, especially on the chain of Bargy on one side and the Lake Geneva and the Jura on the other. Without difficulty, the climb is sustained, but accessible to all. In winter, the ascent is easy, but still requires good physical condition for the steepest passes before the summit. When the stratus nappe covers the valley, the view is simply splendid !
The painter
Ferdinand Hodler was one of the best-known Swiss painters of the 19th century. His early works were portraits, landscapes, and genre paintings in a realistic style. Later, he adopted a personal form of symbolism he called Parallelism.
In the last decade of the nineteenth century his work evolved to combine influences from several genres including Symbolism and Art Nouveau. In 1890 he completed Night, a work that marked Hodler's turn toward symbolist imagery. It depicts several recumbent figures, all of them relaxed in sleep except for an agitated man who is menaced by a figure shrouded in black, which Hodler intended as a symbol of death. Hodler developed a style he called "Parallelism" that emphasized the symmetry and rhythm he believed formed the basis of human society. In paintings such as The Chosen One, groupings of figures are symmetrically arranged in poses suggestive of ritual or dance.
Hodler painted number of large-scale historical paintings, often with patriotic themes. In 1897 he accepted a commission to paint a series of large frescoes for the Weapons Room of the Schweizerisches Landesmuseum in Zurich. The compositions he proposed, including The Battle of Marignan which depicted a battle that the Swiss lost, were controversial for their imagery and style, and Hodler was not permitted to execute the frescoes until 1900.
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.