Courtesy of the Kunstmuseum, Bern, SIK-ISEA, Inv. 23111, All rights reserved, Please refer to the terms and conditions of the institution holding the object
Creator(s)
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Date of creation
Between 1889 and 1890
Materials and techniques
Oil on canvas
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In the painting The Night, Hodler placed a naked man lying down at the centre of the composition, with a succubus shrouded in black perched on his lower abdomen and thighs. The sleeper startles awake in utter terror, clawing at the knees or paws of the nightmare in an attempt to fend it off. None of the other sleepers around him notice what is happening. Hodler used himself as the model for the terrified man, which gave rise to many psychoanalytical interpretations – all the more so as people recognised his wife in the sleeping woman from whom he had turned away and suspected the naked woman to be a mistress, without, however, investigating whether professional models had been used.
