Theodor von Hörmann

(Imst 1840–1895 Graz)
Ice Floes on the Banks of the Thaya, 1891, signed, dated Theod. v. Hörmann / Znaim März 1891, label with no. 64 on the reverse, oil on canvas, 70 x 101cm, framed
Provenance:
Collection Johann Stikarofsky (1846-1919), Brno;
his sale, C. J. Wawra, Vienna, 30. March 1903, Lot 37;
purchased by Dr. Rudolf Landesberg (1876-1915), Vienna;
Private Collection, Vienna;
Art trade, Vienna, 1970‘s;
Private Collection, Austria.

Exhibited:
Leopold Museum, Vienna, 29 April - 29 August 2016.

Catalogued and illustrated in:
Marianne Hussl-Hörmann, Theodor von Hörmann. Biographie und Verzeichnis der Gemälde, Vienna 2013, cat. raisonné no. I.313 (wrong measurements);
Theodor von Hörmann. Von Paris zur Secession, exhibition catalogue, Leopold Museum, Vienna 2016, ill. p. 73.

In March 1891, Theodor von Hörmann went to the banks of the Thaya to capture the fascinating spectacle of the mighty blocks of ice being dragged along the riverbank in the midst of awakening nature. He first painted two small pictures on wood, one of which is in the Belvedere collection, where the landscape is still shrouded in mist, while in this third painting, which was probably created in his studio, the radiant sun bathes everything in a warming, golden-brown tone.

A year earlier, in 1890, Hörmann had moved to Znojmo in Moravia, which at the time was still part of the empire and well connected to Vienna. A long road lay behind him, from a trained officer who taught in St. Pölten and became an autodidact in painting, to the extremely fruitful and inspiring years in Paris, which introduced him to the painterly freedom and diversity of the impressionistic capture of nature. After his return in 1890, he unexpectedly went to Znojmo, probably in search of peace and nature, a small Barbizon. In the following five years - the last of his all too short artistic life - he produced major works, not only of his own art but also of Austrian painting on the threshold of modernism, the Secession, of which Hörmann was a pioneer and initiator.

These masterpieces also include the painting "Ice Floes", with which Hörmann began his time in Znojmo. It was privately owned for decades and is perhaps one of the last major works that can be offered on the market.

Hörmann was a "reality fanatic" who overcame realism in his search for authenticity. There are very specific details with which he subtly questions the self-evidence of a motif and thus the indifference of seeing: an emphasized diagonal creates the illusion of space, which collides with the raised horizon and the picture planes stacked on top of one another. Dynamic contradictions also characterize the painterly realization: a meticulous, almost naïve drawing of the houses of the picturesque town of Znojmo arranged on the hill is countered by a "chaos" of brushstrokes, which partly cover and then again capture the grandiose natural spectacle of the ice floes in fine, gesturally applied lines. And it wouldn't be Hörmann if the motif didn't also follow this appealing, perception-questioning game: Thin, fragile-looking birch trunks stand in the middle of mighty ice floes, epitomizing the forces of nature. But they appear tamed in their wild confusion, while the young trees rise up playfully and triumphantly in a strictly linear arrangement, heralding a new year.