Hodler, La Pointe d'Andey viewed from Bonneville, 1909

Musée d'Orsay

At the end of the 19th century, the artistic scene in Switzerland was full of vitality. In the late 1890s, a generation of painters became established and radically renewed the art of their time. These included Cuno Amiet, Giovanni and Augusto Giacometti (father and uncle of Alberto), Felix Vallotton, Ernest Bieler and Max Buri.

Trained in France, Germany or in Italy, and in touch with European avant-garde movements, they explored the expressive, symbolic and decorative power of line and color, while favoring subjects inspired by a history and national culture of Switzerland that was just being invented, and against the background of the young federal state created in 1848.

Unlike their contemporaries - the Fauve painters in France and the Expressionists in Germany - these extraordinary colorists are little known outside Switzerland. The current exhibition is an unprecedented opportunity to discover one of the great art movements of early modern European art.