THOMA, Hans
(b. 1839, Bernau, d. 1924, Karlsruhe)

Adam and Eve

1897
Oil on canvas, 110 x 79 cm
The Hermitage, St. Petersburg

Thoma's Symbolist paintings were produced under the strong influence of the so-called Roman Germans - Hans von Marées, Arnold Böcklin, and Anselm Feuerbach - who in the 1880s preferred Italian inspiration to conservative German tradition. Yet Thoma's oeuvre embodies that tradition: without going beyond the bounds of accepted taste, he introduced features of national romanticism into the classical genres of landscape, portrait, and still-life.