Like the work of Böcklin and Feuerbach, that of the Swiss painter Ferdinand Hodler can also be ascribed to symbolism. In the 1890s Hodler developed a new and monumental style that marks an opposite standpoint to impressionism. Hodler is not concerned with ephemeral effects of light and colour, but rather with the clear emblematic expression of deep experience and emotion.
Similar formal means can also be seen in the Norwegian Edvard Munch, whose atmospheric landscapes are the mirror of his feelings. In this he is seen as a precursor of expressionism, as is Paula Modersohn-Becker.
In 1897 Modersohn-Becker arrives in Worpswede, near Bremen, and joins an artist colony founded two years previously by her future husband, Otto Modersohn. She frequently travels to Paris, where she becomes involved with the French avant-garde. Shortly after her early death in 1907 August von der Heydt purchases twenty-eight paintings from her estate, of which the museum still holds twenty-one.
