It was not the broad expanse of the open lake that inspired the Swiss painter Ferdinand Hodler to execute this painting, but the horizontal arrangement of its visible elements. He used shades of blue and yellow to create a harmonious whole, articulated only by nuances of colour, which allows one to sense the realms of mist and cloud as well as the surface of the water and the hardness of the mountains. While Hodler’s landscapes – constructions of parallel layers – usually make do without human figures, they nevertheless lend symbolic expression to humanity’s longing for union with nature within a cosmic order.