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Italian Landscape with a Resting Hunter, Self Portrait, B143

Explanation

  • To underline the classical quality of his landscapes, Reinhart often populates his paintings with people dressed in classical garb. However, in this case the sole figure in the painting is a hunter in contemporary dress. He has dismounted from his horse to take a rest, and now sits enjoying the view across the Roman Campagna’s endless, sun-drenched plains. But there is no question of a pure, Arcadian idyll: in the left background it is raining heavily, and in the right foreground the huge collapsed blocks of stones with the bared roots and a dead tree trunk tell their own story of the strength of hostile natural forces. Reinhart himself was a keen hunter, and it has been suggested that the figure in the painting is a self-portrait.

Motif / Theme