Natalia Shtolder
Russian State University of Tourism and Services Studies, Russia
The article proposes to consider the question of intersections and parallels оf works of Ferdinand Hodler (1856–1918) and the art of the Renaissance. Artistic practice of the outstanding Swiss master had obvious humanist and anthropocentric focus. A deep interest in the achievements of the Renaissance had a fruitful influence on his formation and on the development of principles of the mature works.
In the article we will analyze the aspects of the teaching practice of B. Menn, Hodler’s teacher, whose humanistic content awakened in the young artist the natural science interest and the desire for the knowledge of the objective laws of the nature. Also the article will consider Hodler’s universal theory of parallelism in the context of his works. It will highlight the actual and indirect influence and the intersection with the works of A. Dürer and H. Holbein, Giotto and other “Italian primitives”, Mantegna and Michelangelo in terms of perception, composition, technological and decorative methods. Analysis of linear-spatial constructions in Hodler’s symbolist figure compositions is carried out, and issues concerning the use of line, color and light by the artist in relation to the Renaissance aspirations are discussed.
Hodler’s diversifying study of a person that can be observed in a number of compositions relating to the theme of “death — life”, and the theme of “body — motion — emotion” is also the subject of this article. The body is considered by the artist as a natural phenomenon in the dialog between the realistic depiction of a motion, including dance motion, and the inner emotion. Plato’s eurhythmie meets here with the renewed vision of the symbolist. The features of the creative method of F. Hodler as a scientific approach and art expression, the search of beauty and the conscious combinatorics of figures, fresco allusions and update of the oil technology is considered in the context of the European Art Nouveau and Symbolism.
The artist appears to be a “renaissance” identity in the paradigm of art of the late 19th — early 20th centuries. Hodler’s response to the challenges of the time: the study and presentation of the new “psycho-physical” person as space within its inner self which is inextricably linked to the great mystery of the nature beyond the grasp of mind. In the work of Hodler the harmony between man and nature is found in the paradoxical convergence of individual realistic visual language of art and symbolist latent meanings.