Lot 245 D

A popular composition Karl Hofer used in many of his numerous representations of figures is the group of three. It runs through all periods of his work and provides the opportunity for him to depict interaction between a small number of people in a vast range of variation. Often the focus is on one person as is the case in our “Figurengruppe in Berglandschaft”: Here it is a young woman, who has broken down exhausted and is being cared for affectionately by two other women. It is left undecided whether this is a depiction of the virtue “caritas”, compassion. Hofer often took up Biblical themes and appropriately remarked on that point: “Human beings and the human were and are an enduring object of my portrayals, but portrayals understood in a deeper sense that touches on the religious. I consider the artwork to be the highest to which one could apply Hölderlin's term of the 'holy prosaic'.” (Quoted from: Karl Hofer. Aus Leben und Kunst, Berlin, 1952, p. 30). This aspect is further emphasized through the vertical arrangement of the composition with the elongated figures in a narrow portrait format.