Mildred Ferguson 
Ferdinand Hodler: Paintings 

Ferdinand Hodler was famous Swiss painters of the 19th century. He developed a style which he called ’Parallelism’, characterized by groupings of figures symmetrically arranged in poses suggesting ritual or dance. Hodler’s work in his final phase took on an expressionist aspect with strongly coloured and geometrical figures. Landscapes were pared down to essentials, sometimes consisting of a jagged wedge of land between water and sky. These mystical, non-realistic paintings depicting an escape from the bourgeois cares of modern life gained Hodler first notoriety and then popularity.