Josef Anton
Koch

Th. A. Koch was born in the family of a Tyrolean merchant. My childhood was a shepherd. With the support of the Bishop of Augsburg was first adopted in dillingers Seminary, and then studied painting in Stuttgart, Carlo school. He leaves school and goes to Strasbourg, and then to Switzerland. With the exception of stay in Vienna in 1812-1815 years. A. Koch, beginning with 1795, has lived in Rome. Especially often he drew Albanska the mountains and the countryside near Olevano. In his works, the artist has combined the principles of a landscape by Poussin, with his direct observations of nature, captured in numerous drawings and watercolors.

From 1795 he worked in Rome, where he lived continuously, except for the trip to Vienna (1795-1812). Studied with A. J. Carstens. Under his influence first became interested in drawing, engraving; from 1803 he began to work in painting. Close to Rome with a circle of Northern artists (B. Thorvaldsen, time Nazarene works), was influenced by the aesthetic ideas of A. W. and F. Schlegel, F. Schiller; took part in the discussions of the artists in the cafe "Greco" in Rome. A lot of drawing in Rome and its surroundings (Olevano, Sabiano, Tivoli) together with artists-time Nazarene works — paintings in the casino Massimo in the Park of the Villa of Prince K. Massimo in Rome. Pictures Koch the View from Olevano with a shepherd and a self-portrait (CA. 1823, Copenhagen, thorvaldsens Museum), View from the garden of the convent of San Isidoro in Rome (Stuttgart, State. art gallery), watercolor Apollo with the shepherds in a mountain landscape (1792, Berlin, State. museums) truthfully convey the vast expanses Italian landscape landscapes. As in the drawings of the time Nazarene works, scenes from modern life or mythological staffage give them that amazing realistic concreteness, the character ideal of the heroic landscape. The intertwining of "pagan" and "Christian" in the culture of Rome that have preoccupied the artists of the early nineteenth century, when the ideals of neo-classicism the romantic view of the world of nature and man, subtly reflected in the scenic landscapes I. A. Koch. In his paintings Koch introduces biblical and mythological staffage, "pagan" and "Christian" sound in his works as the antithesis, as two layers of human history. Paintings of Landscape with a rainbow (1815, Munich, New Pinakothek), Stormy landscape with two riders (1800, Kiel, Art Museum) convey the grandeur of the natural universe, like the works of Poussin and Lorrain, but at the same time they expressed sentimental feelings of the artist of the XIX century, implement these specific types in the spirit of classicism of Schiller. World of landscapes I. A. Koch in tune with the idyllic poetry of the Swiss poet C. Gessner, whose works were popular at the turn of XVIII—XIX centuries, the figure of Koch Arcadian landscape with a shepherd and a girl at the brook (1792, Stuttgart, Mountains. graphic collection) poetically recreates the world of ancient Arcadia, the Hellenic sense of nature and enjoyment of life. And yet the Christian world provoked the Koch, as the artist transition era of the turn of the century, no lesser interest. He loved to visit the Park of Villa Negroni-Peretti where sketched of the early Christian Basilica of Santa Maria Maggiore, built by Pope Liberia in 352, was later rebuilt and became the largest Christian Basilica in Rome.

Hobby drawing and engraving I. A., Koch has carried through life. Filled with a clear contour line in the graphic manner of the turn of the century his paintings were highly esteemed by his contemporaries. Has become widely popular drawings of Koch to the Songs of Ossian (1796-1797), a series of engravings of the Argonauts (1797-1798), executed from the drawings of A. J. Carstens, a series of engravings views of Rome (1810-1811; 1830-1832, Essen, Museum Folkwang). The artist entered the history of art as a prominent master of the art "circa 1800".