Ferdinand Hodler [Hardcover]

Oskar Batschmann (Author), Katharina Schmidt (Author), Robert Kopp (Author), Ferdinand Hodler (Author)

Book Description

Publication Date: July 1, 2008 | ISBN-10: 3775720634 | ISBN-13: 978-3775720632

Swiss painter Ferdinand Hodler is one of Europe's best least-known artists. Though he remained in Switzerland for his entire life, his international reputation has been growing in the past several decades, beginning with a traveling retrospective in the early 1970s. Hodler, who kept up on the latest movements brewing in Paris, is considered a Symbolist who tempered that movement's flights of fancy with Realism. He is regarded as a bridge between the Modern period and the impulses of mid-1800s Realism, Symbolism and Art Nouveau. As may be expected with such a range of influences at the artist's disposal, Hodler's style fluctuated widely throughout his career. His most well known painting may be "The Woodcutter" (1908), which was commissioned as an illustration for the Swiss 50-franc note. "The Woodcutter" is a strange and engaging mixture of Expressionism--the subject is depicted mid-chop in vigorous brush strokes--and Symbolism, as the ghostly landscape behind the figure supports an odd, bright blue, orb-like cloud. More than two decades since his last retrospective, this fresh and extensive assessment of Hodler's paintings finds much new territory to uncover.

Product Details

• Hardcover: 416 pages
• Publisher: Hatje Cantz (July 1, 2008)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 3775720634
• ISBN-13: 978-3775720632
• Product Dimensions: 11.6 x 9.8 x 1.6 inches
• Shipping Weight: 5.7 pounds (View shipping rates and policies)
• Average Customer Review: 4.5 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (4 customer reviews)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #838,155 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)

More About the Author

Welcome to the author page of Daniel and Denise Ankele. We publish artist, genre and compilation art books! Most of our books contain an "Interesting Facts", page about the artist. We love art history, from the visual perspective. Our goal is to visually present as much of an artist's work in one book as possible. We digitally restore many of the images we include in a book, while maintaining the integrity of the artwork. Not a lot of prose, just visually stunning artwork. Please think of our books as a "coffee table book" for the kindle; or whatever device you are viewing it on. Enjoy!

Daniel and Denise Ankele are a husband and wife team who love to work and spend time together. We are artists, designers, photographers and publishers. We wear many hats for the business we are in. Whether it's photographing landscapes and wildlife or designing an art project, our collaborations are the most rewarding. We met in college and both of us graduated with a BA in photography. I'm the extrovert, while Denise is the introvert, it's a near perfect match! (nobody's perfect). She has taught me to slow down a little in life, while I have shown her to be more bold. Our travels together have covered over 2/3 of the United States and we are blessed to live on the California Central Coast.

Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

7 of 7 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Extraordinary, January 16, 2009

By 

C. Asli Filiz (Istanbul, Turkey) - See all my reviews
(REAL NAME)   

This review is from: Ferdinand Hodler (Hardcover)

If you have an interest in Hodler or Hodler's painting style, when you first handle this book, it will absolutely excite you. If you do not have a prior interest, it is as strong as to make you have an interest in Hodler. It is comprehensive and quality...

With this book, you can have detailed and satisfactory information about every period of his painting history as well as well-printed numerous paintings. Hodler's realist approach, parallelism, extraordinary landscapes, symbolism, romantic recent epoch paintings, linear drawing and more are included in this book. Thanks.

5 of 5 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars milestone work on the Swiss artist Ferdinand Hodler, October 23, 2008

By 

Henry Berry "Henry Berry" (Southport, CT) - See all my reviews
(TOP 1000 REVIEWER)    (REAL NAME)   

This review is from: Ferdinand Hodler (Hardcover)

The Swiss artist Ferdinand Hodler (1853-1918) does not fall into any school or movement. His distinctive style abstracts types of art of his era (though the style is not abstract). Yet Hodler is neither an imitator nor a precursor. He's too distinctive to be either.

Though because of elements of his style, Hodler fits within his historical era, his uniqueness is such that he has a somewhat oblique relationship to and almost no effect on the history of art. Yet this relationship to his era and his society is not "conflicted," as this term has come to be used so often for modern artists' struggles, rejections, and seeking of new paths. Hodler did not, for instance, look back. Unlike French painters (e. g., Courbet, Manet) who would be seen as the first wave of Modernism, Hodler did not consciously or explicitly reject academicism; and in so doing move into a realism. He did though naturally and effortlessly transmute it so that he might as well have intended to move from it. Hodler's affinity with academicism--fading, but still influential in the earlier years of his career--is seen in the iconic, somewhat stiff, appearance of his human figures. But such formality as inhering in 19th-century academic paintings is so different in Hodler's that one sees primarily instead his figures as forerunners by several decades of the totemic-like figures and jazzy, though formal, motifs of art deco.

Hodler's paintings are like a mix of art nouveau and art deco; though art nouveau cleared of its normally crowded, intermingled parts representing the world of nature. As the subtitle denotes, he's symbolist - yes, but mostly coincidentally in style, not meaning particularly to promulgate a symbolist worldview, or else he would belong to this school. His paintings are closer to stylized illustration art than highly-worked paintings with layered elements and complex relationships. They can also be seen as incorporating decorative features such as accentuation, isolation, and clarity. As figures of Hodler's can be seen to be forerunner's of art deco figures, so can his landscapes of rocks and shorelines be seen to be forerunners of cubism. But these can be seen as more cubist than cubism the forms and their demarcations, partaking of stylistics of decorative art, are so clean and clear. This evident feature of Hodler's art, as essayists point out, bespeaks the artist's idealism; which sometimes drifts into a type of spirituality or myth. It is this more than anything which associates Hodler with symbolism.

The work is practically a catalog raisonne with its comprehensiveness; though organized thematically rather than chronologically, and with more critique, commentary, and analysis in its text. There's a great quantity of illustration going into the breadth, variety, and detail of Hodler's work. Captions of many illustrations are like pithy essays to be read, not simply skimmed over. Several essays, some with following commentaries, discuss the varied facets of the art. The voluminous, handsome, liberally illustrated, and studious work is a milestone regarding this artist who evades pigeonholing for his individuality, grandness of artistic vision, and uniqueness of stylistic detail in the paintings.

2 of 2 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Excellent book!, October 16, 2008

By 

Rico Lebrun - See all my reviews

Amazon Verified Purchase

This review is from: Ferdinand Hodler (Hardcover)

If you like Hodler, this is an excellent book. Clocking in at over 400 pages, it is the one book on Hodler to own. The reproductions are excellent and profuse. Availability is a problem. As of Oct 2008, I purchased a copy through the german Amazon. $80 with shipping. Well worth it to me. This is an exhibition catalog, so there will not be many around. Get it while the gettin is good.