Hans Thoma

Hans Thoma painted the Black Forest and the Rhine valley with a quiet, almost folk-like calm: wide meadows, orchards, children, and figures from legend set in real German countryside. He admired Courbet and the Barbizon painters, but his pictures lean toward poetry more than strict realism, and he drew on older German masters such as Altdorfer and Cranach.

He was born in Bernau im Schwarzwald and studied at the Karlsruhe Academy under Johann Wilhelm Schirmer. After years in Munich and Frankfurt he returned to Karlsruhe in 1899 as professor and director of the Kunsthalle, a post he held until 1920. The Städel in Frankfurt and the Kunsthalle Karlsruhe hold the largest groups of his work.

His month and season paintings, such as April and August, show him at his most typical: soft light, open land and a feeling of stillness.