I. Dialogue with Nature

Swiss artists at the end of the 19^th and the beginning of the 20^th century evoked their vision of the spiritual connection between humanity and nature by depicting figures immersed in the landscape, poignant gestures, dance-like movements and enraptured faces. The figures are in a dialogue with nature, as a work title by Ferdinand Hodler (Zwiegespräch mit der Natur) puts it. Their bodies become vehicles of spiritual sensations and their nudity underscores their oneness with the cosmos.

The desire for such an idyll is characteristic of the turn of the century zeitgeist. Against a backdrop of industrialisation, urbanisation and the mechanisation of all areas of life, many felt and were critical of humanity’s increasing alienation from nature and therefore from themselves. Under the motto of Lebensreform (life reform), a variety of social reform movements in Germany and Switzerland began striving for a ‘natural way of living’ that would restore the harmony of body, mind and soul.

The fin-de-siècle mentality was likewise echoed in the work of artists, who responded to the modern world with a range of counter-concepts. One of them was of humankind existing in a quasi-paradisiacal state of blissful harmony with nature, as portrayed in works by artists ranging from Giovanni Giacometti to Victor Surbek.