HOFMANN, LUDWIG VON1861 Darmstadt - 1945 Pillnitz


Title: Coastal Section in Southern Italy.
Technique: Oil on canvas.
Measurement: 73 x 114cm.
Notation: Monogrammed lower left: ""LvH" (ligated)".
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. In the distance, a domed building is visible far above the plateau 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 populated only by two tiny, staffage-like fishermen with their boats.
On the canvas, Ludwig von Hofmann is expressing his fascination for Italy through the paint, which was awakened in him during a trip of several months through large parts of the country in 1894. Particularly crucial for his oeuvre is his encounter with antiquity, the study of which he intensively devotes himself 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 "Vereinigung der 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 colours, 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.