Snow in the Engadine 1907

Ferdinand Hodler made this painting of snow in the Engadine, with oil on canvas. It's a painting about stillness; the kind you get when snow has fallen and everything is hushed. Hodler's technique here, with its thin washes of color, feels like he's trying to capture not just the scene, but the very air itself. The surface is so smooth, almost like watercolor, you can barely see the brushstrokes. It’s like he’s trying to disappear into the landscape, trying to make the paint become the snow. Look closely at the sky, at the pale blues and greens. There is a sense of layering, an ambiguity to the color that gives real depth. For me, it’s reminiscent of the tonalist paintings of James McNeill Whistler, in its quiet and meditative quality. These are paintings that don't shout; they whisper.