(1853-1918) Swiss painter. His dramatic Art Nouveau paintings of allegorical, historical, and mythological subjects include large murals with dreamy Symbolist female figures, such as Day about 1900 (Kunsthaus, Zürich). His work prefigured Expressionism.
He studied art at Geneva with Barthélémy Menn and by copying old masters. He competed successfully for the decoration of the national museum at Zürich. Beginning as portrait and landscape painter he turned to historical themes and finally evolved a decorative and symbolic style, as in his Towards the Infinite, which made a great impression in his lifetime and caused him to be regarded as the most distinguished of the purely Swiss school.