Joseph Anton Koch

While hiking and sketching throughout the Italian countryside, Joseph Anton Koch and fellow German-speaking artists became particularly fascinated with scenery near the remote hill towns of Paliano and Olevano to the east of Rome. He later used the topography of the region as inspiration for compositional studies, which served as the basis for larger paintings. The peasants and shepherds in this scene quietly pursue their daily activities in perfect harmony with the landscape, fulfilling Koch’s description of the Italian countryside as an “Urlandschaft,” an “original” or “source” landscape that evoked an ideal and timeless world, far from modern commerce and warfare. In this era, the German states were divided by political turmoil and war, prompting many Northern artists, like Koch, to visit and settle permanently in Italy.