The Swiss Connection: Ferdinand Hodler
Day (Der Tag), 1899–1900
Oil on canvas
160 × 352 cm
© Kunstmuseum Bern, Switzerland

Hodler’s biographer Carl Albert Loosli recalled the painter’s excitement in July 1899, when he claimed to have finally found the composition for Der Tag, sketching it at night on a marble table in the Bern train station buffet: an “upward curve” marked by five vertical forms. Whether this refers to the lost original version or the present Bern canvas remains uncertain, but by the autumn of that year Hodler was already working on the large painting, as Fritz Widmann later remembered seeing him labour over it in a tower room of the Swiss National Museum in Zurich. After years of searching, Hodler had resolved to create two versions on the theme of Day: one likely the original multi‑figure composition, now surviving only in fragments, and the other the single‑figure Der Tag / Die Wahrheit. For the Bern version, he transferred the earlier conception onto a new canvas, altering the poses and positions of the figures and shaping the entire scene around a rising, rhythmic curve. In this final composition, the five nude figures form the arc of the awakening, their bodies arranged in a deliberate correspondence that carries the movement upward.

Hodler emphasised the symmetrical relationship between the first and fifth figures, and between the second and fourth, reinforcing the structure with the convex sweep of the cloth, the strip of grass, and the pale yellow ground. The symmetry, though firm, is softened by the varied gestures of the women, the downward‑right gaze of the central figure, and small irregularities — shifting hairstyles, green flecks in the meadow, the gentle undulation of the fabric. For the central figure he used his wife, Berthe, while the identities of the other models remain unknown; it appears that the same woman posed for both the second and fourth figures, and likely for the outer pair as well. Numerous nude studies survive on loose sheets and in sketchbooks, including a carnet marked “Zurich” and dated “October 1899,” which contains material notes and mirrored figure studies for the second and fourth positions. Hodler later explained that he conceived Der Tag as the awakening of women and the triumph of light, a statement that aligns with the painting’s rising movement and its luminous, almost ceremonial atmosphere.

Hodler created the Bern version of Der Tag as a major exhibition piece for the 1900 World’s Fair in Paris, where he presented it alongside Die Nacht and Eurhythmie. This Bern canvas, the fully realised form of the composition and the version Hodler selected to represent him on the world stage, carried the clarity of its structure, the disciplined symmetry, and the radiant theme of awakening that resonated strongly with contemporary audiences, earning him the gold honorary medal and securing his place within the international modernist conversation. This success would echo through the following years, shaping his reception in the Berlin and Vienna Secessions and influencing artists such as Klimt, Kokoschka, Schiele, and most intensely Koloman Moser after 1910. Seen in this context, Der Tag stands not only as a culmination of Hodler’s long search for a symbolic language of form and light but also as one of the works through which his vision entered the broader current of European modernism.