Switzerland

About

In 1444, Konrad Witz set a Gospel miracle on a recognisable Lake Geneva, an early portrait of a real landscape. The Zurich-born Henry Fuseli painted the eerie The Nightmare (1781) in London, and around 1900 Ferdinand Hodler composed Alpine views and rows of figures with rhythmic symmetry.

Neutral Switzerland sheltered the avant-garde during the First World War, and Dada was born at Zurich's Cabaret Voltaire in 1916. Paul Klee, born near Bern, and Alberto Giacometti, with his thin, walking figures, became central modern artists. After 1950, Swiss graphic designers such as Josef Müller-Brockmann developed a strict grid-based style that spread worldwide. Jean Tinguely built machines that clatter, and in one case destroyed themselves, while Dieter Roth made art from chocolate and rotting food. Photographers Robert Frank and René Burri worked internationally, Mario Botta designed geometric brick buildings, and watchmakers turned precision mechanics into an object of design.