Renaissance Vector in the Works of Ferdinand Hodler
At the turn of the 19th-20th centuries, the appeal to the art of Renaissance was one of the special features of the European artistic quest. The creative method of Swiss artist Ferdinand Hodler (1853-1918) was largely inspired by the ideas of this epoch; nevertheless, his altered forms were linked with the spirit of his time. The article considers a series of comparisons and connections between Hodler’s creations and Renaissance art which reveals the versatility and depth of this recognized European master. The study analyzes a number of paintings and graphic works on the theoretical background of his theory of parallelism. Hodler’s symbolic canvases were compared with frescoes by Giotto, Michelangelo and other Renaissance artists evident in their monumental and decorative approach to the construction of space with regard to symmetry and a three-dimensional form. It is noted that Hodler’s humanistic orientation of vision and his reverence for the Old Masters, as well as the idea of unity, similarity, and repetition formed at the time of training by B. Menn. Moreover, the study questions the connection with the Northern Renaissance masters, Holbein and Durer, in different aspects. As a result, Hodler appears as a “Renaissance man” in the paradigm of the art of the given period. There is a sense of harmony between a man and nature found in a paradoxical convergence of his individual realistic visual language and latent symbolic meanings.