Johann Christian Reinhart

1761 Hof – 1847 Rome

Johann Christian Reinhart, who settled in Rome in 1789, was a shining light among the German artistic community there. "Handsome Reinhart", as he was called by his colleagues, was not only a highly talented artist, but also had a frank and winning manner. He was a fearless child of nature and a daring huntsman, "a lively, fiery character, gifted with wit and intelligence... " (Andresen). Reinhart’s social contacts in Rome were correspondingly intense. His closer circle of friends included such artists as Dies, Mechau, Klengel and the Dutch landscape painter Hendrik Voogd, who had moved to Rome in 1788. His profound friendship with Joseph Anton Koch, a few years his junior, who arrived in Rome in 1795, also had far-reaching consequences. Theirs was a symbiotic relationship on which they both drew for mutual artistic inspiration, which was to last all their lives. Together with Koch, Reinhart became the founder of a new, idealizing conception of landscape.