Der Frühling (Spring),

ca. 1910

A prolific Swiss painter with working-class origins, Hodler was primarily known for Impressionist landscapes of his native Switzerland until he was introduced to the nascent Symbolist movement. Around 1890 he began to paint nude figures arranged in mystical compositions that reprefirmly established Hodler’s reputation as an important Art Nouveau painter. Set against a decorative meadow slope, a kneeling young woman appears as if, in the words of one of the artist’s early biographers, she were "awakening from the sleep of childhood to the spring of love."sented universal themes and emotions. This lithograph reproduces one of two youthful lovers that appear in the artist’s painting Spring, painted in 1900/01. The painting was exhibited to enthusiastic acclaim in the numerous exhibitions in Zurich, Berlin, and Vienna that