Hans Thoma
(Bernau 1839 - 1924 Karlsruhe)

Two Centaurs
1879

Oil on panel
16.3 x 11.7 cm

Signed with the monogram and dated lower left TH 79

Provenance:
Collection of the artist (up to 1909)

Literature:
Henry Thode, Thoma, des Meisters Gemälde, Stuttgart 1909, with a catalogue raisonné, p.515, no. CXXXII: 1880er Jahre. Zwei Centauren, Ganz klein. Karlsruhe, Hans Thoma

Hans Thoma's artistic career began - like that of many other artists of his generation - at the Academy in Karlsruhe. But he soon distanced himself from academic doctrine. By 1890, his position was one of tacit yet emphatic opposition to an artistic tradition that barred public recognition of his art. A powerful feeling of solidarity emerged in his friendships with like-minded contemporaries in Munich in the 1870s. These were the artists of the Leibl circle like Viktor Müller and Wilhelm Trübner; Arnold Böcklin and later, Hans von Marées. A visit to Paris in 1868 with his friend Otto Scholderer was important to his artistic development. While the impact of Gustave Courbet, Théodore Rousseau, Jean-François Millet and Edouard Manet clearly had a formative influence on his career, he saw their work as a convincing endorsement of his own artistic views. He spent an extended period in Italy. In 1877, he moved to Frankfurt. Later, he returned to Italy, staying in Florence and also travelled to England and Holland. He produced costume designs for the Wagners in Bayreuth and was befriended by Cosima whose portrait he painted.

Public opinion warmed to his work in the 1890s. The change in sentiment can be attributed to an increasing public interest in international art in general and to the growing influence of French contemporary art in particular. He received an important commission to design a frieze for the music room of the Pringsheim family residence in Munich. An exhibition of thirty-six of his works at the Kunstverein in Munich marked a career breakthrough. Demand for his paintings reached extraordinary levels and a stream of public awards followed. Named an honorary member of the Academy in 1895, he was appointed Preussischer Professor in 1898 and director of the Karlsruhe gallery and art school in 1899. In 1903 he received an honorary doctorate from Heidelberg University and in 1904 Bavaria's Maximiliansorden. His career reached its peak around the turn of the century.[1]

After 1905, public interest focused on his allegorical, mythological and religious work. This work was the subject of much controversy, especially when it began to be exploited for propaganda purposes by nationalist interests (particularly Henry Thode's defence of Böcklin and Thoma[2]). He viewed this interpretation of his work with considerable scepticism as he was ever-conscious of his debt to the influences of French and English art.[3]

Inspired by the work of Böcklin and Marées, mythological themes appear regularly in his work after the mid 1870s.

In the present painting the bearded centaurs have something of the impact of a caricature. The wooden club seems massive in proportion to the limp carcass of the hare. The facial features of the centaurs have portrait character - they perhaps represent well-known critics or academy professors.

[1]For a biography of Thoma, see Bruno Bushardt, Hans Thoma, 1839-1924, exhib. cat., Georg Schäfer Collection, Schweinfurt 1989-90, pp. 9-11.; Henry Thode, Thoma, des Meisters Gemälde, Stuttgart 1909, with cat. rais.; Gustav Keyssner, Thoma, Stuttgart and Berlin 1922.

[2] Bushardt, op. cit., pp. 14-5.

[3] Bushardt, op. cit., pp. 15-6.