DOI Heft:
Nr. 230 (April 1916)
DOI Artikel:The modern swiss school of alpine landscape art and the work of Edoardo Berta
DOI Seite / Zitierlink: https://doi.org/10.11588/diglit.43461#0152
Modern Swiss School of Alpine Landscape Art
“ l’or de l’automne”
BY E. BERTA
that he employs with mastery a language and style
eminently suited to the expression of such an art.
And now turning to other and different painters
—with what charm and intimacy the beauties of
Geneva lake-side scenery or the history, customs,
quaint, quiet corners of the dear old city have
been treated by De Beaumont, Estoppey, Silvestre,
Simonet, Reuter, Rhefous, Coteau, Van Muyden,
Duvoisin, and others; with what feeling for a
humble but independent lot, Valaisan and other
Swiss peasant types and mountain village life have
been evoked by Giron, Rhefous, Burnand, Van
Muyden, Bieler, Hermenjat, and such promising
young artists as Max Buri, Edouard Vallet, E.
Boss, E. Wurthenberger ; with what ceaseless and
perhaps excessive technical research Cuno Amiet
and Giacometti have dealt with effects of light,
atmosphere, and snow on landscape and human
nature in the Grisons or the Bernese Ober-
land ; with what blending of idealism and realism
Paul Robert—one of the greatest living Swiss
painters—has expressed his dream of the coming
of the Kingdom of God in his own canton, in the
beautiful mural paintings with which he has
adorned the Neuchatel Museum ; and how pro-
foundly the poetry and beauty of the Tessin have
permeated the art of Edoardo Berta, Pietro Chiesa,
and all the members of the Tessinese group.
Amongst these artists Edoardo Berta stands in
the front rank by virtue of his entirely artistic
temperament and spirit as well as by his special
96
gifts. He is a devotee of the religion of the
beautiful. Some years ago I contributed an
article on his life and work to The Studio.
Since that time he has matured, but has carried
the freshness of his youth into the work of his
prime. It inspires a riper experience, a surer
technique, a fuller vision. He has felt the
influence of the schools, has been urged on
beyond them by love of Nature and sincere,
passionate effort at self-realisation, and has
attained to the perfect law of liberty in his art.
Like Otto Vautier, though in a different manner,
he is eminently a painter’s painter in more than
one secret of his masterly technique. He is more :
a poet-painter like the brothers Chiesa (the one
with the brush and the other with the pen), and
with them the theme he loves above all is his own
Tessin. The poetry of its landscapes, its old build-
ings, its gardens of the dead and of the living,
its very life has entered into his soul and imagi-
nation, inspiring him in the execution of a series
of beautiful and intensely intimate and personal
paintings which are a permanent contribution to
Swiss art. If ever Nature in that marvellous
canton has taken an artist aside and whispered her
secret into his soul, she has done so in the case of
Edoardo Berta, because reverence and simplicity
of soul have kept his ear open to her authentic
“GfTE EN MONTAGNE”
BY E. BERTA
“ l’or de l’automne”
BY E. BERTA
that he employs with mastery a language and style
eminently suited to the expression of such an art.
And now turning to other and different painters
—with what charm and intimacy the beauties of
Geneva lake-side scenery or the history, customs,
quaint, quiet corners of the dear old city have
been treated by De Beaumont, Estoppey, Silvestre,
Simonet, Reuter, Rhefous, Coteau, Van Muyden,
Duvoisin, and others; with what feeling for a
humble but independent lot, Valaisan and other
Swiss peasant types and mountain village life have
been evoked by Giron, Rhefous, Burnand, Van
Muyden, Bieler, Hermenjat, and such promising
young artists as Max Buri, Edouard Vallet, E.
Boss, E. Wurthenberger ; with what ceaseless and
perhaps excessive technical research Cuno Amiet
and Giacometti have dealt with effects of light,
atmosphere, and snow on landscape and human
nature in the Grisons or the Bernese Ober-
land ; with what blending of idealism and realism
Paul Robert—one of the greatest living Swiss
painters—has expressed his dream of the coming
of the Kingdom of God in his own canton, in the
beautiful mural paintings with which he has
adorned the Neuchatel Museum ; and how pro-
foundly the poetry and beauty of the Tessin have
permeated the art of Edoardo Berta, Pietro Chiesa,
and all the members of the Tessinese group.
Amongst these artists Edoardo Berta stands in
the front rank by virtue of his entirely artistic
temperament and spirit as well as by his special
96
gifts. He is a devotee of the religion of the
beautiful. Some years ago I contributed an
article on his life and work to The Studio.
Since that time he has matured, but has carried
the freshness of his youth into the work of his
prime. It inspires a riper experience, a surer
technique, a fuller vision. He has felt the
influence of the schools, has been urged on
beyond them by love of Nature and sincere,
passionate effort at self-realisation, and has
attained to the perfect law of liberty in his art.
Like Otto Vautier, though in a different manner,
he is eminently a painter’s painter in more than
one secret of his masterly technique. He is more :
a poet-painter like the brothers Chiesa (the one
with the brush and the other with the pen), and
with them the theme he loves above all is his own
Tessin. The poetry of its landscapes, its old build-
ings, its gardens of the dead and of the living,
its very life has entered into his soul and imagi-
nation, inspiring him in the execution of a series
of beautiful and intensely intimate and personal
paintings which are a permanent contribution to
Swiss art. If ever Nature in that marvellous
canton has taken an artist aside and whispered her
secret into his soul, she has done so in the case of
Edoardo Berta, because reverence and simplicity
of soul have kept his ear open to her authentic
“GfTE EN MONTAGNE”
BY E. BERTA