The Dream of the Shepherd (Der Traum des Hirten), 1896, Oil on canvas, 98 1/2 ? 51 3/8 in. (250. 2 ? 130. 5 cm), Paintings, Ferdinand Hodler (Swiss, Bern 1853?1918 Geneva), This powerful and haunting picture is among the ambitious Symbolist compositions that established Hodler?s fame in Europe around 1900, on a par with Edvard Munch and Gustav Klimt. When the painting was first shown during the Swiss national exhibition in Geneva in 1896, critics detected an ironic edge, perhaps because of its venue: a theater associated with the satirical journal Le Sapajou