Q131586095

Painted in 1917, the year before Hodler's death in May 1918, this canvas belongs to his final productive phase. The devastating personal loss of Valentine Godé-Darel in 1915 had been followed by continued work on alpine landscapes, self-portraits, and a small number of figure compositions. Age and declining health reduced his output, but the late works — often described as his most directly expressive — show no loss of formal intelligence. The 1917 canvases are among his last sustained statements, painted with the freedom of a master who no longer needed to prove anything and whose palette had reached its most saturated intensity. The Kunsthaus Zürich, by this point the foremost repository of his work, would later frame these late paintings as a distinct chapter in a seven-decade career.

Late Hodler canvases of 1917 display a broadened, more gestural application compared with the tight precision of the 1890s. Colour is bolder and sometimes almost violently intense — pure blues, acid yellows, saturated greens — applied with a directness that approaches the Expressionism of younger Swiss painters. Yet compositional structure remains rigorous, underpinning the emotional force.