Although Burger cannot be categorized as a Symbolist in the strictest sense, his palette, his penchant for jagged outlines and his ethereal skies owe much to his brief apprenticeship with Ferdinand Hodler, the leading Swiss painter of the late nineteenth century. Indeed, this atmospheric Zugersee canvas with the mountains Pilatus on the left and Rigi in the far distance, is very close to Hodler in style and spirit.

Wilhelm, or Willy, Burger is nowadays better known as a graphic artist and his lithograph posters such as Jungfraubahn. Station Jungfrau: Joch 3457 m. Aletschgletscher, 1914 and St. Moritz, 1912. However, he was first and foremost a painter by training who apprenticed in Zurich before leaving for Philadelphia and New York in 1908. He returned to Switzerland in 1913 and set up a studio in Rüschlikon on the west shore of Lake Zürich from where he would travel throughout the Alps, the Mediterranean and as far afield as Egypt for his commissions.