Das Turnerbankett

Under the influence of Plato's 'Symposion' and probably also in awareness of the famous portrayal of Anselm Feuerbach (1869; Karlsruhe, Staatliche Kunsthalle), Hodler composed the 'Gymnast's Banquet' for the competition for the 100th anniversary of the Geneva Kunstverein on a theme from Geneva's past or present in 1876. With its large flag, the Swiss crest above the exit and the various cantonal emblems, the event is characterized as a federal gymnastics festival, one of those national events that in the 19th century did much to unite the federal state. Its meaning and the way of speaking found its classical literary form in Gottfried Keller's novella 'Das Fähnlein der sieben Aufrechten' (The Flag of the Seven Righteous). Hodler submitted his first multi-figure composition, for which his fellow students sat for him in the attic of the École de Grutli, under the motto 'mens sana in corpore sano' and received the first prize ex aequo with Auguste-Frédéric Dufaux. In 1878, he transferred the lost cardboard to canvas in modified form (details on the history of its creation, identification of the sitters and illustrations of the cardboard in Wilhelm Wartmann's 'Das 'Turnerbankett' by F. Hodler' (Das Kunsthaus VII, 1917/ 1/2)). Source