Factsheet

LE CLAIRE
SEIT 1982
KUNST
actual size
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LE CLAIRE
SEIT 1982
KUNST
FERDINAND HODLER
1853 Bern - Geneva 1918
Old Man, Dejected / Figure Study for ‘Die enttäuschten Seelen’ [The Disillusioned Souls]
Pencil, reworked in coloured chalk, on thin wove; squaring in pencil; 1891.
Signed in pencil lower right: F Hodler.
159 x 150 mm
PROVENANCE: Richard Bühler, Winterthur
LITERATURE: Oskar Bätschmann and Paul Müller, Ferdinand Hodler. Catalogue raisonné der Gemälde, Band 2,
Die Bildnisse (contributing authors: Oskar Bätschmann, Monika Brunner and Bernadette Walter),
Schweizerisches Institut für Kunstgeschichte, Zurich 2012, p. 163, under no. 761, repr. (Schweizerisches Institut für Kunstwissenschaft, Œuvrekataloge Schweizer Künstler, 23/2)
EXHIBITION: Der unbekannte Winterthurer Privatbesitz 1500-1900, Kunstmuseum, Winterthur 1942, no. 363,
titled Sinnender Greis.
The figure in this squared pencil drawing corresponds very closely with the figure in a pastel by
Hodler inscribed Enttäuschter. Both drawings depict an old man hunched forward with his head in his
hands. However, in the pastel the figure is full-length and seated on a wooden bench with his elbows
on his thighs. 1 (Fig. 1) Hodler’s autograph inscription on the pastel is a reference to his important
Symbolist painting titled Die enttäuschten Seelen. (Fig. 2) The close similarity between the present
drawing and the pastel strongly suggests that they both served as preparatory studies for the painting.
They are detailed studies for the second figure on the right. Die enttäuschten Seelen was exhibited at the
first Salon de la Rose+Croix in Paris in March-April 1892 and attracted great public interest.2 Hodler
later attributed the surge in public recognition of his work in Paris to this painting.3 Die enttäuschten
Seelen depicts the black-swathed figures of five dejected old men. It ranks alongside the three largeformat paintings titled Night, Day and Eurhythmics as one of his four key works. These four works were
termed by Hodler himself the ‘Ehren-Hodler’.4 Hodler’s remarks to his biographer Carl Albert Loosli
throw important light on the form and content of the painting: In this painting I wanted to represent utter
despair in life. Hence the stooped postures of all the figures, the figure at the centre being the most expressive of all.5
1
Sotheby’s Zurich, 2 June 2015, lot 11 (inscribed Enttäuschter), 1891-2, pastel, gouache, brush and black ink, pencil on
Fabriano, 41.5 x 24 cm, private collection.
2
Jean da Silva, Le Salon de la Rose + Croix (1892-1897), Paris 1991, pp. 112-3. Isabelle Cahn, ‘‟Sous peu je serai connu à Parisˮ.
Réception critique de Hodler en France 1881-1913’, in Ferdinand Hodler, exhib. cat., Musée d’Orsay, Paris 2007, pp. 222-31.
3
C[arl] A[lbert] Loosli, Ferdinand Hodler. Leben, Werk und Nachlass, Bern 1921-4, IV, pp. 334-5.
4
Matthias Frehner: ‘Die Ehren-Hodler. Die symbolistischen Hauptwerke im Kunstmuseum Bern’, in Ferdinand Hodler. Eine
symbolistische Vision, exhib. cat., Kunstmuseum Bern 2008 and Museum der Bildenden Künste Budapest 2008, pp. 91-115. In a
letter to Johann Friedrich Büzberger dated 30 June 1900 Hodler described the four Symbolist figure compositions as
Hauptwerke [major works] and Ehren-Hodler; see Loosli, op. cit., IV, pp. 337-8.
5
Loosli, op. cit., II, p. 172.
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In terms of pose, the central figure in the painting recalls the figure of John the Evangelist as depicted
by the Florentine painter Andrea del Castagno in his fresco titled The Last Supper (1445). (Fig. 3)
Castagno’s highly expressive depiction of St. John conveys his despair at the imminent death of Christ.
St. John is shown seated at a table leaning forward, his head resting on his right arm. The fresco was
revealed by restoration work on the refectory of S. Apollonia in Florence. It was made accessible to a
wider public when it was photographed by the Fratelli Alinari in 1860. In 1905, Hodler visited Florence
where he made sketches after works by Italian masters, among them Castagno’s fresco.6
The present study also recalls a lithograph by van Gogh titled Au Seuil de l’éternité [At Eternity’s Gate]
(1882). The lithograph depicts a man seated on a chair in a similar position.7 (Fig. 4)
Hodler made a great many studies of melancholic and despairing figures where body language and
pose are articulated to express a psychological condition. Good examples are his portraits of workers
and peasants which he executed in 1887. Here, facial and body language convey a deep sense of
melancholy and despondency.8 (Fig. 5) Hodler made figure studies on his visits to taverns – meaningfully titling his subject une âme en peine – and these reveal his intense interest in social deprivation and
human suffering. His artistic preoccupation focused on hands, arms and facial details, and this is
demonstrated in the present figure study. Delicately sketched outlines define the unworked areas of
the head and upper body. Short, densely grouped pencil strokes are used to model finger joints and
wrists. In the painting itself the finely delineated knucklebones provide colouristic contrasts. The
aged, gnarled hands of the old manual labourer seem to lend him a degree of moral support in his
despair.
Monika Brunner, Dr. phil., MAS UniBS
6
Monika Brunner, ‘’Voyage en Italie’. Ferdinand Hodlers Skizzenhefte seiner Italienreisen’, in Hubert Locher and Peter J.
Schneemann (eds.), Grammatik der Kunstgeschichte. Sprachproblem und Regelwerk im ‘Bild-Diskurs’, Schweizerisches Institut für
Kunstwissenschaft/Edition Imorde, Zurich 2008, pp. 195-207.
7
The lithograph is based on a drawing; see Peter Vignau-Wilberg, ‘Zu Hodlers Lebensmüden’, in Rudolf Koella (ed.),
Ferdinand Hodler, exhib. cat., Kunsthalle der Hypo-Kulturstiftung, Munich and Von der Heydt-Museum, Wuppertal 19992000, Munich 1999, pp. 22-35.
8
Cabinet d’arts graphiques du Musée d’art et d’histoire, Geneva, inv. 1958-176/031; see Monika Brunner in Oskar
Bätschmann and Paul Müller, op. cit., 2012, pp. 159-163.
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Fig. 1: Ferdinand Hodler, Enttäuschter, 1891-2,
pastel, gouache, brush and black ink on Fabriano, 41.5 x 24 cm. Private collection
Fig. 2: Ferdinand Hodler, Die enttäuschten Seelen [The Disillusioned Souls], 1892,
oil on canvas, 120 x 299 cm. Kunstmuseum Bern
Fig. 3: Fratelli Alinari, photograph (detail) after Andrea del Castagno, The Last Supper,
fresco in the refectory of S. Apollonia, Florence
ELBCHAUSSEE 386 ∙ 22609 HAMBURG ∙ TELEFON: +49 (0)40 881 06 46 ∙ FAX: +49 (0)40 880 46 12
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Fig. 4: Vincent Van Gogh, Au Seuil de l’éternité [At Eternity’s Gate],
lithograph, 1882
Fig. 5: Ferdinand Hodler, Portrait of an Unknown Man (Old Man, Dejected), c.1887,
oil on canvas, 54 x 37.5 cm
Musée des Arts et des Sciences, Sainte-Croix
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