Image source: artvee.com
Introduction
Hans Thoma’s Through the Floods (1889) is a masterful fusion of mythic symbolism and naturalistic detail. Painted in oil on canvas, it portrays a young woman and a cherubic putto astride a fantastical aquatic creature—part fish, part mammal—emerging from a turbulent sea. The woman, draped in a crimson cloth that echoes the creature’s finned tail, gazes pensively toward the horizon, while the winged infant offers a bouquet of spring blooms as a symbol of renewal. Through balanced composition, a striking palette of blues and reds, and an evocative interplay of light and water, Thoma transforms a moment of peril into a celebration of survival, hope, and the eternal cycles of nature. Over the next two thousand words, we will explore the painting’s cultural context, Thoma’s artistic evolution, its formal structure, chromatic strategies, mythological resonances, technical execution, and its enduring place within the artist’s oeuvre and late 19th-century German art.
Historical and Cultural Context
In the closing decades of the 19th century, Germany was in flux. The unification of 1871 had ushered in rapid industrialization, national consolidation, and shifts in social fabric. Amid burgeoning factories, urban centers, and technological progress, many artists sought refuge in pastoral imagery and mythic narratives that evoked a simpler, more unified past. The Munich Secession of 1892 would soon challenge academic orthodoxy, but as Through the Floods was painted in 1889, Thoma’s sensibility aligned with a transitional phase: one foot firmly in academic reverence for medieval and Renaissance traditions, the other poised toward emerging Symbolist currents. His return to mythic themes—satyrs, nymphs, angels—reflected a collective yearning for spiritual grounding and an allegorical language capable of addressing the challenges of modern life. In this environment, Through the Floods served both as an artistic escape and as a metaphor for resilience in the face of upheaval.
The Artist’s Evolution
Born in 1839 in the Black Forest town of Bernau im Schwarzwald, Hans Thoma trained under the Nazarene master Philip Veit at the Düsseldorf Academy, absorbing early Renaissance purity of line and spiritual intent. Travels to Italy introduced him to Venetian colorists—Titian’s luminous glazes and Bellini’s serene compositions—and sojourns in the Netherlands deepened his respect for Rembrandt’s chiaroscuro. By the 1880s, Thoma had synthesized these influences into a distinctive style: crystalline forms, decorative detail, and a palette that balanced vibrancy with subtlety. His body of work ranged from serene landscapes to allegorical figure scenes. In Through the Floods, we see the culmination of Thoma’s journey: the disciplined compositional clarity of his Nazarene roots, enriched by Renaissance colorism and infused with a Symbolist embrace of myth and metaphor.
Mythological Underpinnings
The imagery of Through the Floods evokes ancient and Renaissance tales of water spirits, nymphs, and gods traversing elemental realms. The aquatic creature—a hybrid of mammal and fish—recalls the hippocampus of Greek mythology, steeds of Poseidon that bridged sea and land. The woman’s contemplative gaze and the child’s winged form evoke the Renaissance trope of divine guidance and the Platonic ideal of the soul’s journey through chaos toward enlightenment. By situating his protagonists atop a mythic sea-beast, Thoma taps into a universal allegory: humanity’s passage through turmoil, guided by wisdom (the woman) and hope or innocence (the putto). The bouquet—comprising daffodils, roses, and tulips—further references seasonal renewal and the restorative power of nature, underscoring the theme of emerging from adversity.
Composition and Spatial Dynamics
Thoma arranges Through the Floods along a gentle diagonal: the creature’s head at lower left, the woman seated near center, and the putto at upper left, gesturing skyward. This diagonal carries the viewer’s eye from the roiling waves at left through the figures toward the calmer horizon at right—a visual journey from chaos to tranquility. The horizon line sits low, granting prominence to the expansive sky, whose pale, sweeping clouds mirror the rhythmic curves of waves below. The creature’s massive form, its head partially submerged, anchors the composition, while the figures’ verticality introduces contrast and a sense of buoyancy. Negative space—both the open sky above and the unbroken sea behind—isolates the trio as if suspended between elemental forces, reinforcing their heroic, allegorical stature.
Color Palette and Light
Thoma’s color scheme in Through the Floods is deceptively restrained yet powerfully evocative. The sea displays graduated blues—from near-teal in the shallows to deeper cerulean at the horizon—punctuated by white highlights that capture wave crests. The sky’s pale gray-blues convey an overcast day, diffusing light evenly across forms. Against these cool tones, the woman’s drapery and the creature’s tail fin break forth in vibrant crimson, shifting to scarlet and vermilion in sunlit folds. This warm accent not only identifies her as central but also symbolizes vitality and rebirth. Flesh tones, built from soft ochres and rose glazes, achieve a lifelike warmth that contrasts with the aqueous environment. Light appears to come from a subdued, diffuse source—perhaps a hidden sun—imparting a meditative quality. Reflected highlights on skin, fabric, and water unify the tableau, while subtle shadows give volume without dramatic chiaroscuro.
The Figures: Interaction and Gesture
Thoma renders the woman and putto with a keen sense of psychological presence. The adult figure sits astride the creature’s back, her body turned slightly toward the viewer, yet her gaze is cast down, as if contemplating the water’s surface or lost in inward thought. Her left hand gently holds the reins; her right hand, partially raised, mirrors the curve of the child’s arm. The putto, facing away, stands confidently on the beast’s head, offering the floral bouquet upward. His profile—soft, cherubic—contrasts with the woman’s more defined features, suggesting innocence guiding experience. Together, their gestures form a subtle echo: both arms lift in celebration or invitation, linking earth and sky, adversity and hope. The creature itself, eyes open and nostrils flared, seems to strain against the currents, embodying the struggle that supports their transit.
Symbolic Resonance of Flora and Fauna
The bouquet held by the putto carries layered symbolism. Spring flowers—daffodils for new beginnings, roses for love and sacrifice, tulips for perfect love—encompass a medley of themes tied to Christian and secular iconography. Bound with a ribbon, the bouquet signifies unity and continuity amid flux. The sea-beast’s hybrid nature represents the meeting point of opposing realms—land and water, conscious and unconscious, known and unknown. Its gills spew little jets of water, echoing baptismal renewal. In combining these motifs, Thoma weaves a tapestry of redemption and perseverance: through floods both literal and metaphorical, life persists and blossoms anew.
Technical Mastery and Brushwork
Thoma’s execution in Through the Floods demonstrates consummate skill. He began with a finely detailed underdrawing, likely in charcoal or thin paint, mapping out anatomical proportions and compositional axes. A warm mid-tone ground provided equilibrium between shadows and highlights. Over this, Thoma applied thin oil glazes—layered rose, ochre, and white for flesh; ultramarine mixed with earth pigments for water—allowing underlayers to glow through. The creature’s scales and the fabric’s folds were rendered with a combination of scumbled strokes and precise highlights, capturing both texture and sheen. The sea’s surface, stippled with quick, horizontal strokes, achieves a rhythmic vibrancy, while the sky’s softer, wetter brushwork suggests ephemeral clouds. The result is a surface that balances meticulous detail with painterly fluidity, inviting close viewing and contemplation.
Relation to Thoma’s Oeuvre
While Hans Thoma is often celebrated for his landscapes and allegories of German folk life, Through the Floods stands as a personal apex of his mythic figure painting. It resonates with earlier works such as Dancing Putti with a Garland of Roses (1889) and At the Spring Well (1886), yet it distinguishes itself by its more dramatic elemental setting and deeper symbolic complexity. Where his child-and-nymph scenes evoke benign pastoral harmony, here Thoma engages with peril and salvation. The painting anticipates later Symbolist trends, in which mythic narratives and inner experience intertwine more fully, positioning Thoma as a bridge between 19th-century historicism and modern explorations of psyche and allegory.
Reception and Legacy
Upon its initial exhibition, Through the Floods attracted acclaim for its poetic imagination and technical refinement. Critics praised Thoma’s ability to infuse mythic subject matter with palpable human emotion and natural authenticity. In subsequent decades, the painting influenced German Symbolists who sought to navigate themes of danger and transcendence through mythic imagery. Today, it remains a highlight of Thoma’s career, studied for its layered symbolism, compositional ingenuity, and luminous execution. Its enduring appeal lies in its universal message of resilience and hope—an allegory as relevant amid modern uncertainties as it was in Thoma’s time.
Conclusion
Through the Floods is a richly textured allegory of survival, renewal, and the partnership of innocence and experience. Hans Thoma’s synthesis of classical mythology, Renaissance colorism, and German Romantic naturalism yields a painting that speaks across epochs. Through balanced composition, arresting color contrasts, nuanced gestures, and detailed brushwork, Thoma invites viewers into a moment of peril transformed into possibility. The woman, the child, and the mythical creature stand as metaphors for humanity’s voyage through life’s storms—guided by wisdom, buoyed by hope, and sustained by the eternal promise of spring. Over a century after its creation, Through the Floods continues to captivate, reminding us that even amid upheaval, life’s currents can carry us toward renewal.