Ferdinand Hodler Quotes about Art

Ferdinand Hodler was a famous Swiss painter associated with symbolism and what he called parallelism. He is best known for his patriotic scenes, landscapes and for designing the 50 Swiss franc bank note and the 100 franc note first printed in 1911. Famous Ferdinand Hodler artworks include “Portrait of Baronin Maria von Bach”, “The Chosen One”, “Spring”, “Woodcutter”, “The Road to Evordes”, “Walking at the Forest Edge”, “At the Foot of the Petit Saleve”, “Mountain Stream Near Champéry”, “Lake of Geneve”, “The Lumberjack”, “The Reaper” and “Night”.

Mini biography: Born Ferdinand Hodler on the 14th of March, 1853 in Bern, Switzerland. His mother was Marguerite Neukomm and his father Jean Hodler was a crapenter. Hodler married Bertha Stucki in 1889 and they divorced in 1891. He married his second wife Berthe Jacques in 1898. The artist died on the 19th of May, 1918 in Geneva, Switzerland at the age of 65. Hodler is buried at the Cimetière de Saint-Georges, Geneva, Geneve, Switzerland.

List of Famous Ferdinand Hodler Art Quotes

If an object is pleasant, repetition will increase its charm; if it expresses sorrow or pain, then repetition will intensify its melancholy. On the contrary, any subject that is peculiar or unpleasant will be made unbearable by repetition. So repetition always acts to increase intensity. Ferdinand Hodler

I call ‘parallelism’ any kind of repetition. When I feel most strongly the charm of things in nature, there is always an impression of unity. If my way leads into a pine wood where the trees reach high into heaven, I see the trunks that stand to the right and to the left of me as countless columns. One and the same vertical line, repeated many times, surrounds me. Ferdinand Hodler

If a few people who have come together for the same purpose sit around a table, we can understand them as parallels making up a unity, like the petals of a flower. When we are happy we do not like to hear a discordant voice that disturbs our joy. Proverbially, it is said: Birds of a feather flock together. In all these examples parallelism, or the principle of repetition, can be pointed out. Ferdinand Hodler

The artist’s mission is to give shape to what is eternal in nature, to reveal its inherent beauty; he sublimates the shapes of the human body. He shows an enlarged and simplified nature, liberated from all the details, which do not tell us anything. He shows us a work according to the size of his own experience, of his heart and his spirit. Ferdinand Hodler

‘Parallelism’ can be pointed out in the different parts of a single object, looked at alone; it is even more obvious when one puts several objects of the same kind next to each other. Now if we compare our own lives and customs with these appearances in nature, we shall be astonished to find the same principle repeated. Ferdinand Hodler

This beautiful head, this whole body, like a Byzantine empress on the mosaics of Ravenna – and this nose, this mouth – and the eyes, they too, those wonderful eyes – all these the worms will eat. And nothing will remain, absolutely nothing! Ferdinand Hodler

Ferdinand Hodler Self Portrait Painting

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Related or similar popular artists and celebrities include: Alberto Giacometti, Gustav Klimt, Max Beckmann, Arnold Böcklin, and other Famous Swiss Artists.