Lake Thun from Lessig 1904

Ferdinand Hodler made this oil on canvas, Lake Thun from Lessig, and it just sings with serenity. The palette is really quite limited with blues, greens, and browns dominating, and I can just imagine Hodler, outdoors, carefully applying each stroke, trying to capture the right balance of light and shadow. He's arranging these colours in a very interesting way. The clouds are a collection of rounded shapes, that form into long lines, creating a sort of visual echo with the mountains in the distance. There's something about how the painting is constructed that speaks to the artist’s internal landscape. What was Hodler thinking about as he carefully recreated what he saw before him? The simplicity of the scene and the rhythmic repetition of forms gives the composition a quiet, meditative feeling. It reminds me a little bit of the landscapes of artists like Agnes Martin. Like Hodler, she embraced restraint and repetition in her practice. Ultimately, artists are in an ongoing conversation and exchange of ideas across time, and this piece is just one contribution to that dialogue.