Lake Geneva with Savoyerbergen 1907

Ferdinand Hodler painted this view of Lake Geneva, with the Savoyerbergen mountains looming in the distance, using oil on canvas. It’s all in these directional strokes, you know? They describe the grass, the lake and the mountains in a way that feels both representational and totally abstract. I feel like Hodler had a real struggle with this one. He must have been out there, painting *en plein air*, trying to capture the enormity of the landscape, but also feeling the limitations of the canvas, the paint itself. I mean, how do you convey the feeling of being in a landscape? Hodler does it with these little jabs of color. Look at how the white of the mountain tops extends into the sky, or how the blue in the mountains is also in the lake! It’s almost as if Hodler is trying to blend everything together. He is reminding us that everything is connected. And of course, he's in conversation with Cezanne and other artists trying to find new ways of seeing and painting nature. That's the beauty of painting – it's never just one voice, but a chorus of artists speaking to each other across time.