Studio: international art (10.1897)

Hans Tho ma and his IVork

rated technical ability altogether. Sometimes he
draws badly; it is not because he cannot do better,
for there are plenty of instances which prove the
contrary. But since all his contemporaries laid so
much more stress on verisimilitude than they ought
to have, he laid less. However, if too elaborate
technique withdraws our attention from the real
artistic qualities of a painting, imperfect technique
will do this also. When we see misshapen ex-
tremities, ill-proportioned bodies, the possibility
of our extracting the sentiment buried in the work
is»small.

This is perhaps the one drawback of Thoma's
secluded life. Intercourse with fellow-artists
would have probably shown him this deficiency
more plainly, and would have induced him to
perfect himself as a draughtsman. As it is, it
seems that his early training did not provide him
with sufficient mastery over form, and he did not
in later years increase it. At any rate, his works
are very unequal.

One failing, however, that appeared in his early
work has vanished completely. He has cultivated
a keen sense of colour. There is no longer any
harshness in his paintings ; they are rich but har-

monious, and in addition he possesses an eye for
that decorative colour combination rarely to be met
with in Germany, though common enough in
England and France. He will, for example, use
two colours in a simple floral border, choosing the
tints with such consummate skill that the very jux-
taposition of the two is alone enough to give us
pleasure. He has often produced works in which
naturalism of colour is totally abandoned and all
objects painted within an arbitrary chord of beauti-
ful hues.

Some people have admired Thoma's versatility.
He has indeed painted all manner of subjects, but
I think it is because the subject, as a story, is
nothing to him. Whether he chooses a Flight
into Egypt, a Temptation of Christ, a Group
of Dancing Children, an allegory of Spring, or a
simple Taunus landscape, his one object always
remains the same. He only wishes to raise in us
the voice that calls us away to a distant land, where
words hint at wonders, and where we enjoy, we
know not how or why.

About four years ago Thoma began to do black-and-
white work. At that time there was a general revival.
Klinger and Greiner were beginning to be known,

'singing angels"

from a tainting by hans thoma
87