  About the Artwork
  
  
  Between 1892 and 1899, Ferdinand Hodler explored ideas in drawings, sketches, and paintings for a large-scale mural composition titled Day. In that monumental work –– which Hodler realized in four versions –– a group of five nude female figures in an expansive but spare, light-infused landscape create an image of the renewal of life at the break of each day. This painting is a fragment of the first version of Day (now partially destroyed), which Hodler completed in 1899 and then followed with three variants. The woman turns to her left to shield her eyes from the light in a classical gesture of awakening from sleep. An examination of the canvas revealed that it was cut on three sides. After Hodler separated this painting from other parts of the composition, he modified it to be able to sell it as an independent work: he painted over body parts of the neighboring figures, which are still partly visible on the right and the left of the image.
  
  
  Title
  &quot;Day&quot;, fragment
  
  
  Artwork Date
  1899
  
  Artist
  Ferdinand Hodler
  
  
  
  Life Dates
  1853-1918
  
  
  
  
  Nationality
  
  
  
  Please note:
  Definitions for nationality may vary significantly, depending on chronology and world events.
  Some definitions include:
  Belonging to a people having a common origin based on a geography and/or descent and/or tradition and/or culture and/or religion and/or language, or sharing membership in a legally defined nation.
  
  
  
  Swiss
  
  
  
  Culture
  
  
  
  Please note:
  Cultures may be defined by the language, customs, religious beliefs, social norms, and material traits of a group.
  
  
  
  
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  Medium
  Oil on canvas
  
  
  Dimensions
  Unframed: 41 7/8 × 39 3/8 inches (106.4 × 100 cm)
  Framed: 49 3/8 × 46 13/16 × 1 1/2 inches (125.4 × 118.9 × 3.8 cm)
  
  
  Classification
  Paintings
  
  
  Department
  European Modern Art to 1970
  
  
  Credit
  Founders Society Purchase, Robert H. Tannahill Foundation Fund
  
  
  
  Accession Number
  
  
  
  This unique number is assigned to an individual artwork as part of the cataloguing process at the time of entry into the permanent collection.
  Most frequently, accession numbers begin with the year in which the artwork entered the museum’s holdings.
  For example, 2008.3 refers to the year of acquisition and notes that it was the 3rd of that year. The DIA has a few additional systems—no longer assigned—that identify specific donors or museum patronage groups.
  
  
  
  1988.65
  
  
  Copyright
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