View of Lake Leman from Chexbres 1905

Ferdinand Hodler painted this view of Lake Leman, and you can just see how he built up the picture with simple, repetitive marks. It feels very process oriented. There's something about the way the paint is dragged across the surface that gives the whole scene a kind of shimmering quality. The colors are cool, blues and greens, but there are these warm accents of yellow and orange in the foreground that make the whole thing vibrate. Look at how the clouds are painted, those soft edges achieved by stippling the paint around the peripheries. It's like Hodler is building up these forms bit by bit. I'm reminded of Paul Klee, another Swiss artist who was also interested in breaking down the image into its constituent parts. Both artists show us how artmaking is an ongoing conversation. There’s no one right way to see it!