In the first of these two articles showing a selection of paintings of major lakes in Switzerland, I left with Ferdinand Hodler’s evolving views of Lake Geneva, also known as Lake Léman.
In the final years of Hodler’s life he painted some of the most sublime landscapes of his career. During the winter of 1917-18, his health deteriorated, but he continued to paint from the window of his room in Geneva, completing more than eighteen views during those final months. Here are three examples.
In Lake Geneva with Mont Blanc by Morning Light (1918), one of the more complex paintings of this series, bands represent the lake shore, four different zones of the surface of the lake, the lowlands of the opposite bank, the mountain chains, and two zones of colour in the dawn sky. The lower section of the sky and the foreground shore echo in colour, and contrast in their pale lemon-orange with the blues of the other bands.
Lake Geneva with Mont Blanc in the Morning Light (1918) has a simpler structure, with the water, a band of reflections, the mass of the far shore and mountains merged, and the dawn sky. The dominant colour is the yellow to pale red of the dawn sky and its reflection.
Lake Geneva with Mont Blanc in the (Red) Dawn Light (1918) is also simpler in its structure, with the water coloured by the sky, a zone of blue reflections of the far bank, the merged distant shore and mountains, and the sky.
In Hodler’s ultimate and most sublime landscapes, he eliminated the unnecessary detail, stating just the elements of water, earth, air, and the fire of the rising sun, in their natural rhythm. On 19 May 1918, Hodler died in Geneva, at the age of 65.
Lake Lucerne
This is a huge lake of complex form carved into the heart of Switzerland and is known by many names. Among those are Vierwaldstättersee and the Lake of the Four Cantons; its four arms and other segments are often known by names such as Urnersee, Küssnachtersee, and Luzernersee. It was painted extensively by JMW Turner late in his career, in his pre-Impressionist style, then became a favourite motif for Alexandre Calame.
Turner’s Tell’s Chapel, Lake Lucerne, a watercolour from 1841, shows a commemorative chapel to the Swiss hero William Tell. This allegedly marks the spot where Tell leapt from a boat in which he was being held captive. He escaped to kill the tyrant Gessler, and so to lead the rebellion that brought the precursor of modern Switzerland. The chapel shown here was replaced in 1879 by one decorated with frescos painted by Ernst Stückelberg from Basel.
Among the most famous of Turner’s late watercolours are his views of Mount Rigi, seen across Lake Lucerne. In The Blue Rigi, Sunrise (1842) the mountain is blue in the early dawn, and the planet Venus shimmers vertically above the peak. The foreground features forms suggesting dogs chasing wildfowl at the shore, and in the right the small lights of fishing boats.
Alexandre Calame’s more conventional View of the Urnersee is an oil sketch of part of Lake Lucerne painted in 1848, in which he brings together the rugged cliffs, twisted trees, with just a hint of its mountainous backdrop.
Calame’s Vierwaldstättersee (1849) is an elevated view of Lake Lucerne again with the mountains beyond.
The Lake of the Four Cantons from about 1850 is one of the finest of Calame’s more formal compositions. The foreground trees and boulders add an air of gloom, and contrast with the warm sunlit patches of cliff and crag surrounding the vaguer, almost ethereal surface of the lake. The distance is then dominated by awe-inspiring rock pinnacles, as vertiginous as the imaginary spires seen in many fanciful Renaissance landscapes.
Vierwaldstättersee (1851) shows the same stretch of Lake Lucerne, here from a greater elevation and with the sun higher in the sky, augmenting the distant passages in the haze. There are also some tiny figures, perhaps those of Calame’s client, on the small grassy platform beneath the trees.
Vierwaldstättersee is a further variation, including the same essential elements. Here a larger group of people are sitting on and around the same grassy platform as seen in the previous painting. Comparison with that shows his consistency.
In 1855 Calame went right down to the water’s edge for Vierwaldstättersee (Symphony in Blue). Four sailing boats appear to be floating slightly above its water surface, and a team of boatmen are disembarking onto the massive boulders in the foreground. Gone are the trees too.
Lake Thun
One of Ferdinand Hodler’s finest landscapes of 1904 is Lake Thun with Symmetrical Reflection Before Sunrise. This lake, sometimes known by its German name of Thunersee, is in the Bernese Alps.
With several thousand lakes, and many other artists from Camille Corot to Félix Vallotton who painted them, there’s ample scope for a book. I hope this has at least given you a taste of some of the best.