Ferdinand Hodler

Ferdinand Hodler, born in Bern in 1853, endured a challenging childhood marked by the loss of his father and several siblings to tuberculosis. Apprenticing with a local painter, he began his career by creating conventional Alpine landscapes for tourists. However, his ambition soon led him to Geneva in 1871, where he immersed himself in art studies, copying works and investigating artistic proportions. A trip to Basel in 1875 exposed him to Hans Holbein's "Dead Christ in the…