FOHR, Carl Philipp - b. 1775 Heidelberg, d. 1818 Roma - WGA

FOHR, Carl Philipp

(b. 1775 Heidelberg, d. 1818 Roma)

German painter and draughtsman. His first drawing lessons, from the age of 13, were from Friedrich Rottmann (1768-1816), the father of the painter Carl Rottmann. In 1810 the Darmstadt Court Councillor, Georg Wilhelm Issel, discovered Fohr sketching at Stift Neuberg near Heidelberg and, the following year, invited him to Darmstadt and provided encouragement and financial support. From 1813 Fohr carried out commissions for Grand Duchess Wilhelmina of Hesse, for whom he produced a Sketchbook of the Neckar Region, a collection of views and historical subjects (30 watercolours; 1813-14) and also a Baden Sketchbook (30 watercolours, 1814-15; both Darmstadt, Hessischen Landesmuseums). These far surpassed the usual level attained in this genre in their sharpness of detail, delicacy of colour and pictorial inventiveness. The Crown Princess granted him an annual pension of 500 guilders. From July 1815 to May 1816, Fohr was a student of landscape painting at the Kunstakademie in Munich, and it was here that his breakthrough into an independent and ingenious drawing style came about.

In 1816 Fohr joined Franz Pforr and Friedrich Overbeck in Rome, adding his highly individual achievement to Romantic landscape under Koch’s influence, but he met an early death at the age of 23 in the Tiber and left only five oil paintings.

Ideal Landscape near Rocca Canterana

The Ideal Landscape near Rocca Canterana of the year 1818 is one of Fohr’s best-known paintings. To a greater extent than many other Nazarenes, Fohr turned to the tradition, cultivated since the eighteenth century, of a stylised depiction of nature derived from the classical ideal. The composition shows a rocky pastoral landscape in the central mountains of Italy. In the foreground, a path winds past craggy rocks and old, gnarled trees. Walking along it is a festively clad country girl with a child in her arms, holding the hand of another child balancing a jug on her head. To the right, under the trees, a group of pilgrims passes into a defile, in the direction of a distant, illuminated valley. Ahead of the girl, two shepherds follow the path into the picture, where a peaceful, hilly region rimmed by steep mountains opens out.

This painting stands in the tradition of the Arcadian landscape, which emerged in the Renaissance and inspired countless variations on the theme of a paradise on earth - a paradise that, in this case, due to the presence of pilgrims, also makes allusion to the Christian Heaven. By depicting the various stages of walking and wandering, Fohr evokes the transience of all earthly things and the journey into the future, which is the true goal of human existence.

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Knight before the Charcoal Burner's Hut

Only five oil paintings by this artist are known, but the mastery evident in his small output indicates the career he would surely have had. Dark, deeply glowing colours and a feeling for landscapes elevated to the romantic ideal show his supreme ability in this painting as well.

It is very evident that the late medieval painting of the Danube school, and particularly the work of Adam Elsheimer, had a greater influence on him than studying at the Academy, which he had not greatly enjoyed.

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Portrait of Heinrich Karl Hofmann

Like all German artists, Fohr preferred whole or three-quarters figures in the tradition of D�rer and Holbein. In his hometown of Heidelberg he portrayed one of the first proponents of German unity, the lawyer and journalist Heinrich Karl Hofmann.

Space, setting, clothing and other such details played a subordinate role in Romantic portraits. Here, the artist concentrated on the face and eyes as the essential expressive elements

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