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Ferdinand Hodler (14.3.1853 - 19.5.1918) Die Nacht, 1890 Oe/ auJLeinwand; 116x 299 cm Kunstmuseum Bern, Staat Bein

life until he was 55 years folding put in place for the artists have paid back their great standing in Germany,
old -in 1908. Valentine artist, limiting access to the tormentors, Hodler painted he was immediately
Godé-Darel was a museum and refusing him allegorical pictures at this excluded from all German
porcelain painter and weapons to use as models. time that portray himself as art societies to which he
entirely different from the Angst was a snob and was a warrior overcoming his had recently been admitted.
other women in his life. She appalled that his brainchild enemy -Angst. Such is nationalism.
was 35 years old, indepen- was to be executed by an Recognition came at last. In
dent and self-confident. artist of such humble ori- In 1914 when German 1918 he was made an hon-
Sadly, in 1912 at the age of gins. This affair set in artillery shelled Rheims orary citizen of Geneva and
40 she developed cancer, at motion a national debate Cathedral Hodler, together died there on 19 May.
the same time as becoming involving museum cura- with ninety-nine Genevan
pregnant. Their daughter tors, the press, artists and artists and intellectuals, Sources
Pauline was born in 1913 critics, and the general pub- denounced the deliberate "www onlinekunst.de/maer
and brought up by Hodler's lic. Finally, in 1899 the destruction of an inter- z/14 03 Bio Forts Hod/c
rhtm
recognized
wife Berthe. Valentine Federal Council overruled nationally
Godé-Darel clung on to life Angst and instructed cultural monument (the "www. memo fr/A rticle. asp
until 1915, being painted Hodler to begin work. In shrapnel holes can be seen
hundreds of times by the same way that other to this day). Despite his HAYWARD BEYWOOD
Hodler in sickness -and in
death.
THE NIGHT (1890)
In 1897 the director of the
brand new National Hodler was 37 when he made this autobiographical painting on the theme of sleep and
Museum in Zurich, Henri the fear of death, but also on the relationship between men and women. All the
Michelangelo-like, shadowless figures appear to be naked and are draped in black
Angst, had the idea of dec-
sheets. Both the central figure and the man top right are Hodler himself, while the female
orating the walls of the
figure seen from the back on lower right is his wife at that time-Bertha Stucki (this is the
armoury. A jury was
only time she appeared in one of his paintings). The figures in the foreground sleep
appointed (not containing
peacefully; those in the background less so. The contented couple bottom right can be
Angst) and was unanimous contrasted with the man and two women top left who seem slightly less at ease (the mid-
in selecting Hodler to paint dle figure of this group could be Bertha again). In the middle lies a terrified young man
The Retreat from Marignan (Hodler) with the figure of death placed squarely between his legs. Hodler had good rea-
-a work judged to be out- son to be preoccupied with dying, having grown up amidst grinding poverty and having
standing. However, Angst witnessed the slow death of all his family from tuberculosis. His father died when he was
7, his mother when he was 14, his stepfather when he was 17, and his four brothers and
was horrified and did
one sister-Hodler was the oldest in the family-all died between his eighth birthday and
everything in his power to
the time he was 32. Nor is it unusual that Hodler should put himself in the picture. In all,
stop Hodler carrying out
he painted 100 self-portraits-more than any other painter except Van Gogh himself.
the task, such as obscuring
the place foreseen for the
mural, dismantling the scaf-
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