In 1871, at the age of 18, Hodler travelled on foot to
Geneva to start his career as a painter. He attended science lectures at the
Collège de Genève, and in the museum there he copied paintings by
Alexandre Calame. He travelled to Madrid in 1878, where he stayed for several months and studied the works of masters such as
Titian,
Poussin, and
Velázquez in the
Museo del Prado. It was ridiculed when displayed in Geneva, prompting Hodler's remark to a friend that the Swiss "will not understand me until they see I have been understood elsewhere". Hodler was married twice. From 1889 until their divorce in 1891, Hodler was married to Bertha Stucki, who is depicted in his painting,
Poetry (1897,
Museum für Gestaltung, Zürich). In 1898, Hodler married Berthe Jacques (1868–1957), whom he had met in 1894.
Parallelism In the last decade of the nineteenth century his work evolved to combine influences from several genres including
Symbolism and
Art Nouveau. In 1890 he completed
Night, a work that marked Hodler's turn toward symbolist imagery. When Hodler submitted the painting to the Beaux-Arts exhibition in Geneva in February 1891, the entwined nude figures created a scandal; the mayor deemed the work obscene, and it was withdrawn from the show. Hodler developed a style he called "parallelism" that emphasized the symmetry and rhythm he believed formed the basis of human society. In paintings such as
The Chosen One (1893), groupings of figures are symmetrically arranged in poses suggestive of ritual or dance. Hodler conceived of woman as the embodiment of the desire for harmony with nature, while a child or youth represented innocence and vitality. Hodler first made his conception of "parallelism" public in his 1897 lecture manuscript ''La Mission de l'artiste''. Since then, his theory has been a highly regarded phenomenon in the art world and in research, but today it is no longer entirely uncontroversial. Hodler painted a number of large-scale historical paintings, often with patriotic themes. He was invited to join both the
Berlin Secession and the
Vienna Secession groups. In 1904 he showed 31 works in Vienna, which brought him enhanced recognition and a sales success that finally eased his poverty. In 1908, Hodler met Valentine Godé-Darel, who became his mistress, although he continued to live with his second wife. In 1913, Godé-Darel was diagnosed with a gynecological cancer, and the many hours Hodler spent by her bedside resulted in a remarkable series of paintings documenting her decline from the disease. In January 1914, three months after the birth of their daughter, Pauline, Godé-Darel was subjected to an operation for the cancer. In June 1914, she underwent a second operation. Her death in January 1915 affected Hodler greatly. He occupied himself with work on a series of about 20 introspective
self-portraits that date from 1916. In 1914 he signed a petition of intellectuals from Geneva condemning the German atrocities conducted
using artillery against the Cathedral of Rheims. His Swiss and German friends tried to compel him to withdraw the signature, but he refused. Although mostly bedridden, he painted a number of views of Geneva from his balcony in the months before his death on May 19, 1918. ==Legacy==