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 :. | ie Dents du Midi von Caux aus | Night | Thunersee mit symmetrischer Spiegelung | Genfersee von Chexbres aus | Die Wahrheit II |
Related Artists:
Domingo Garcia y Vasquez
painted Ponta do Cavalao - Niteroi in 1883
SALINI, Tommaso
Italian painter, Roman school (b. 1575, Roma, d. 1625, Roma).Italian painter. He has long been famed as a witness in the lawsuit of 1603 brought by his friend and biographer, Giovanni Baglione, against Caravaggio. His activity as a painter of religious works, still-lifes and genre paintings has been reconstructed in the decades following 1950, although his chronology remains uncertain. He entered the Accademia di S Luca in 1605 but was afterwards expelled on account of his 'difetto', to be readmitted in 1618. He was decorated with the Order of the Golden Spur and became a member of the Congregazione di Virtuosi al Pantheon.
Max Liebermann
German Impressionist Painter, 1847-1935 Max Liebermann (July 20 1847 ?C February 8 1935) was a German painter and printmaker in etching and lithography. The son of a Jewish businessman from Berlin, Liebermann first studied law and philosophy at the University of Berlin, but later studied painting and drawing in Weimar in 1869, in Paris in 1872, and in the Netherlands in 1876-77. During the Franco-Prussian War (1870?C71), Liebermann served as a medic with the Order of St. John near Metz. After living and working for some time in Munich, he finally returned to Berlin in 1884, where he remained for the rest of his life. He was married in 1884 to Martha Liebermann (1857-1943, see portrait by Anders Zorn). Together with Lovis Corinth and Max Slevogt, Liebermann became an exponent of German Impressionism. He used his own inherited wealth to assemble an impressive collection of French Impressionist works. He later chose scenes of the bourgeoisie, as well as aspects of his garden near Lake Wannsee, as motifs for his paintings. In Berlin, he became a famous painter of portraits; his work is especially close in spirit to Édouard Manet. "Boys Bathing" Neue PinakothekFrom 1899 to 1911 he led the premier avant-garde formation in Germany, the Berliner Secession. Beginning in 1920 he was president of the Prussian Academy of Arts. In 1933 he resigned when the academy decided to no longer exhibit works by Jewish artists. While watching the Nazis celebrate their victory by marching through the Brandenburg Gate, Liebermann was reported to have commented: "Ich kann gar nicht so viel fressen, wie ich kotzen möchte" ("I could not eat as much as I would like to vomit.") On 30 April 2006, the Max Liebermann Society opened a permanent museum in the Liebermann family's villa in Berlin-Wannsee. The artist's wife, Martha Liebermann, was forced to sell the building in 1940. In 1943 she committed suicide in the family home, Haus Liebermann, hours before police came to deport her to Theresienstadt concentration camp.