Hans Thoma 1

RATSELRACHEN III (JAWS OF THE RIDDLE III)

1908

Hans Thoma (1839-1924) was born in the Black Forest area of Germany. He was the son of a miller and was trained in the basics of painting by a painter of clock faces. He entered the Karlsruhe academy in 1859, where he studied under Johann Wilhelm Schirmer and Ludwig des Coudres – the latter of which had a major influence on his career. He studied and worked in Düsseldorf, Paris, Italy, Munich and Frankfurt, until his reputation became firmly established as the result of an exhibition of some thirty of his paintings in Munich. In spite of his studies under various masters, his art has little in common with modern ideas, and is formed partly by his early impressions of the simple idyllic life of his native district, partly by his sympathy with the early German masters, particularly with Albrecht Altdorfer and Lucas Cranach the Elder. In his love of the details of nature, in his precise drawing of outline, and in his predilection for local coloring, he has distinct affinities with the Pre-Raphaelites.