The Monk 1914

Ferdinand Hodler made this painting, The Monk, on canvas with oils. Look closely, and you’ll see how Hodler builds this mountain from solid, almost geometric blocks of color. This isn't about some perfect illusion, it's about the raw process of seeing and making. The paint has a kind of stubborn materiality. It’s neither thin nor drippy, it’s just… there, like the mountain itself. The surface is built up of confident, separate brushstrokes, like the strokes that form the icy planes of the glaciers in the foreground. I think about his mark-making, so sure of itself. How does one become so confident? Is it faith? Habit? What I love about the top of the mountain, rendered as rough and broken lines, is how he isn’t trying to trick us into thinking this is a photorealist image. Hodler was a contemporary of artists like Cezanne and Klimt, all of whom were pushing painting away from representation towards something more…felt. It’s a conversation between artists across time, what painting can be, what it can do.