The Grand Muveran 1911

Ferdinand Hodler made this painting of The Grand Muveran with oil paint, but it’s the way he laid it down that really grabs me. He's not trying to trick you into thinking this *is* a mountain, but instead he builds up layers of color to *suggest* a mountain. Look at the lower ridges, see how the yellow peeks out from under blues and greys? It’s like he’s carving into the surface to reveal a hidden depth. And those blues aren't just blues, are they? They shift and shimmer, picking up a touch of violet here, a hint of green there. Hodler was clearly looking at Cézanne, who similarly built volumes out of planes of color. Hodler took it further by introducing his concept of “parallelism” suggesting a deeper order in nature. It's not about perfection, but about rhythm, repetition, and finding the hidden music in the landscape.