Lot 1340 | Ludwig von Hofmann | Coastal Area in Southern Italy

HOFMANN, LUDWIG VON
1861 Darmstadt - 1945 Pillnitz

Title: Coastal Area in Southern Italy.
Technique: Oil on canvas.
Measurement: 73 x 114cm.
Notation: Monogrammed lower left: LvH (lig.).
Frame: Framed.

Verso:
Inscribed on the stretcher: "L.v. Hofmann, Küste bei Neapel".

Provenance:
Private ownership, Germany.

The Italian coastal landscape appears like an untouched paradise in the cheerful painting by Friedrich von Hofmann, which shines in delicate pastel tones. The steep rock formation rises mightily from the turbulent turquoise water. Visible far above the Plato, in the distance is a domed building and, further ahead, a castle-like complex. Their facades, decorated in soft sand and earth tones, blend harmoniously with the landscape to form an idyllic scene that is populated only by two tiny, staffage-like fishermen with their boats. On the canvas, Ludwig von Hofmann gives painterly expression to his fascination for Italy, which was awakened in him during a trip of several months through large parts of the country in 1894. What will be particularly crucial for his oeuvre will be his encounter with antiquity, the study of which he devotes himself intensively to and whose reception is present in many of his works. The painter, whose artistic training began at the Dresden Academy and then moved to Ferdinand Keller in Karlsruhe, was deeply impressed by the vastness and original beauty of the country.
He also received a decisive influence from the French painters Pierre Puvis de Chavannes and Paul-Albert Besnard in Paris. In 1892, alongside Max Liebermann, he became one of the founding members of the "Association of the XI", a forerunner of the Berlin Secession. His unmistakable poetic and atmospheric style originates from that time: It is hard to believe that his pastel-like colors, which are now highly valued, caused displeasure among early critics.
Immersed in the light specific to the Mediterranean region, Ludwig von Hofmann takes the viewer into a peaceful, picturesque coastal landscape that appears timeless and like his version of Arcadia.