Brief Biography-Ferdinand Hodler was born in Bern to a relatively low-income family. At the age of fourteen, a landscape painter for tourists apprenticed him in Thun and later, in Geneva, the paintings of Alexandre Calameimpressed him. In 1878, he went to Madrid and studied the works of the great masters in the Museo del Prado. In Paris in 1891, several French impressionists like Gustave Courbet influenced him, and Art Nouveau and Symbolism styles impressed him back in Geneva. He ultimately developed a style he referred to as Parallelism; however, his later paintings are closer to expressionism. By 1900, he enjoyed success and exhibited widely. The Berlin and Munich Secessions were only two of many outlets.