Painting The Impossible Analysis

Exhibition Review

Hodler Monet Munch. Painting the impossible

Yufei Li (724110)

BBA 6A

Hotel Institute Montreux When I knew that I’m going to visit this art exhibition – Painting The Impossible, I was thinking what means “impossible”, does it refer to paint the fact that not exist in real life or those paintings were not acceptable or favored by most of people at that period? I was wondering how this exhibition is going to surprise me. So I brought those questions as well as with a great expectation on the way to the museum. The exhibition was showed in Fondation Pierre Gianadda which the spectacular cultural center in Martigny. Outside the museum, there is a garden, which has a sculpture exhibition consists of variety style of

Ferdinand Hodler was born in Bern, Switzerland. In contrast to the modernists who were influenced by Eastern art especially young artists at that time, Hodler was a Middle East artist who grown up in traditional European art environment. He is famous for his unique painting style – “parallelism”, “symmetry” in the art of painting as well as had a great influence on modern European painting, especially for youth style and expressionism. His artistic exploration and creation have a variety of uncertain states: sometimes naturalism, idealism, and sometimes symbolism. In fact, Hodler had never been related with any art school, he was a strange and eccentric man and his paintings always have a program which is always put the characters accurately isolated in a flat, neutral background. As you can see in Figure 1, a gentleman with a black topper, blue suit, leaning on crutches, walking alone in the forest trail. The isolation between the character, environment and audience reflected his loneliness in his spirit. Although his paintings have a gloomy atmosphere, it is elegant and vivid. Because he used the dynamics of the Mannerism as well as the outer contours of decorative lines. In his later years, Hodler painted some elegant lake scenery. His work is no lack of strong and powerful, extraordinary expression, it is his style that makes his work still has lasting

For the subject snow, Claude Monet’s – Train in the Snow (figure 3), in a snow day, the driving train in the discharge of gas pollution, the white snow and gray gas formed a obvious contrast, this is a quiet common scene in our life. Monet recorded this moment by using the color, the light, and now the painting shown in front of me gives me a feeling that the train just drove by in front of my eyes at the moment. However, Edvard Munch’s snow presents a different feeling for me. Snow Falling on the Lane (figure 4), two figures in the snow walking from afar, the background is the dark purple trees and dark blue sky, he painted with curved lines, the distant trees and the sky almost merge together, the color whole picture is under the dark tone, the twisted lines convey to the audience a depressed, sad, powerless and lonely emotions, at the same time, it matches this exhibition theme quite well because it painted the impossible. Although it is totally different mood between these two artists, the paintings they created still show the same point: they wanted audience to feel the moment they had been