Q131586094

Painted in 1899, this canvas dates from the years when Ferdinand Hodler's reputation was transitioning from national to international. His allegorical triptychs had established him at home; now invitations to exhibit in Vienna, Munich, and Paris were multiplying. The Vienna Secession would famously display his work to great acclaim in 1900 and again in 1904. The canvases of 1899 often show Hodler refining and extending the Parallelism compositions he had developed through the 1890s, working with growing confidence in a method now thoroughly tested. Landscape subjects from this period display the same formal discipline as the figure compositions: Hodler applied identical structural principles to alpine lake views and mountain profiles as to arranged groups of symbolic human figures.

Late-1890s Hodler canvases maintain the linear clarity and deliberate colour of his mature Symbolist method while showing a slight relaxation of the most rigidly compressed compositions. Brushwork is fluid but controlled, paint layers well-integrated, and the overall surface has the calm, resolved quality of a method fully at ease with itself.