Johann-Christian-Reinhart-Cabinett

Apart from the New Pinakothek in Munich, the Johann Christian Reinhart Gallery in Hof, which opened on 15th January 2008, exhibits more works by the „German-Roman“-painter permanently than any other gallery. The new show rooms present the paintings from the collection of the city of Hof, for which there was no possibility of being shown permanently until now.

The initiative group „museum-aktiv“ was a driving force and laid the foundation together with the Hofer Hospitalstiftung to be able to present the approximately 60 works permanently in a historical setting. Special exhibitions and a change of what is presented are planned. The pieces on display now are mostly etchings in different formats which were mainly created during his time in Rome. With around 30 objects, a focus was set on Reinhart’s animal depictions and such landscape paintings that feature animals.

Johann Christian Reinhart was born in Hof by the Saale in 1761. After his school days, he received an artistic education in Leipzig and Dresden. As a friend of Friedrich Schiller, he was close to the Sturm und Drang Period in his youth even though he worked at the court of Georg I of Saxony-Meiningen from 1847 on. In 1789, Reinhart moved to Rome and stayed in the eternal city until his death in 1847. He developed into one of the most respected artists of the German colony and became a member of the Academies in Berlin and Munich. In 1839, Ludwig I named him Royal Bavarian court painter. Reinhart’s subject area was landscape for which he used such media as drawings, etchings and paintings. He utilized different forms of expression of landscape art in order to express his artistic ideas.

In his work, idylls in the tradition of Salomon Gessner, landscapes which prove an examination of the Dutch art of the 17th century, views on nature and different types of ideal landscape compositions are to be found. In cooperation with his friend Joseph Anton Koch, Reinhart newly developed a type of landscape that is called Ideal Landscape (Ideallandschaft). In art theory these landscapes are taken to depict rough and forbidding scenery in which only strong humankind can assert themselves. By these landscape paintings, Reinhart made himself very prominent in the international classicism in Rome.

The range of landscape forms he uses in combination with the high level of his artistic quality make Reinhart one of the most important landscape artists around 1800.