Sketches for Ferdinand Hodler'sCommunion with Infinity

Abstract

When Ferdinand Hodler first exhibited his Communion with Infinity (Fig. 1) in 1893, his depiction of a nude young woman straining toward the heavens appeared to be, with its positive imagery and optimistic theme, a complete departure from his recent and well-known paintings. Prior to that time, Hodler had concerned himself primarily with themes of deprivation and discouragement; in The Disappointed Souls (Fig. 2) of 1891–92, he had conveyed the hopeless, meaningless waiting for death that he observed in the poverty-stricken old men with whom he lived.1 And in the 1890 Night (Fig. 3), Hodler had revealed this horror of death in a much more personal way, by depicting himself as the central sleeping figure who is awakened, terrified and screaming into the dark, by the black-draped phantom of death. But in 1893, these lugubrious thoughts and pessimistic premonitions seemed to have vanished from his mind, and from his painting. In Communion with Infinity, Hodler's public saw for the first time in several years...