The Lady of the Isenfluh 1902

Ferdinand Hodler made "The Lady of the Isenfluh," with oil paint, on canvas. Hodler's Swiss landscape is composed of diagonal stripes, or bands of color, as if the earth itself is made up of layers and strata. I wonder what it must have been like for Hodler to stand in the mountains, breathing that crisp air, staring at that snow-topped peak. It’s like he was trying to grasp something permanent about nature. Those strokes of blue, green, and pink seem like he's getting at the truth of that mountain, not just what it looks like, but the feeling of it. Think of Cezanne, how he looked at a mountain over and over. There’s something about landscape that makes painters want to dig in and capture the essence of a place. Like they’re in conversation with the land itself.