Brawling Boys
Hans Thoma
Hans Thoma the artist
Two artists, one subject
In 1872, the Munich Art Association showed the latest works by two artists who had both chosen the same topic – a scene of boys fighting. The two artists were Hans Thoma and, over eleven years younger, Wilhelm Trübner.
A question of taste
Some contemporaries felt it was outrageous of Thoma and Trübner to imagine such a scene worthy of art and take the rough, scuffling boys as their subject. A reviewer of the Munich Art Association’s show took a similar view:
“The same exhibition also includes one painting each by two young artists indulging in extreme realism and who, in striving after the truth of nature, even go beyond Courbet’s own approach. […] At least the more outstanding of the two, Hans Thoma, whose name is gradually beginning to become celebrated, does not cultivate ugliness for its own sake, and […] through a great simplicity in conception and colour always achieves a certain effect. In contrast, the painting by Trübner, who constantly seeks to surpass him in originality and the preclusion of beauty as a matter of principle, far exceeds the limits of good taste.”
Impressive encounters
When this less than flattering review of one of his paintings appeared, Hans Thoma had long finished his studies at the Baden Grand Ducal Art School in Karlsruhe, lived for a time in Paris and had ultimately moved to Munich, a magnet for artists in those days.
For a time, he joined the circle there around the artist Wilhelm Leibl. As yet, Thoma had not travelled to Italy, but he was profoundly impressed in Paris by the works of Gustave Courbet, 20 years older than him, as well as the Barbizon artists.
Rather than showing an idealised nature, they wanted to depict it realistically. While under the influence of this approach to art, Thoma painted his Brawling Boys. In a kind of close-up, he shows five boys, rendered in subdued colours, busily fighting.
In the course of time
Some years passed before other circles came to appreciate paintings like this which take realistic subjects from everyday life and depict them realistically. In this process, the reception of Thoma’s Brawling Boys gradually changed as well.
In 1909, in keeping with that change, one critic was already arguing the case for rethinking this painting: “In such early works as the brawling boys […], he is such an honest, powerful painter one can hardly understand how he could possibly have so entirely lost these qualities later.”
By then, Thoma’s early works like this one were appreciated far more than those from his later creative phases.
In 1914, just a few years later, the perception of this work changed yet again. Now some critics claimed his Brawling Boys was neither natural nor realistic enough.
Former Karlsruhe Kunsthalle director Kurt Martin summed this up in 1957 when he wrote: “Comparing the two pictures shows that Thoma painted country boys and Trübner street kids. Thoma composed his picture, fitting one group into the other […]. Since Trübner’s painting is far less composed, he captures reality more spontaneously and ‘authentically’.”
Solving the puzzle
The question still occupying art historians today originated in a very simple anecdote. More than forty years after this work was painted, a friend asked Thoma how he came up with the idea. With a laugh, he told her:
“It was entirely due to external circumstances. Just then, Trübner had no studio as taking another one before summer just wasn’t worthwhile for him. Since I had a large studio and we were friends, I invited him to paint at mine. He stood there and I stood here, each painting. He brought a number of boys with him; they made such a noise that I also started to paint them. Two days later, he had even more boys with him. I’d already finished the two down on the floor. It appealed to me, because he was doing it; I glued on another strip at the top of my picture – you can still see it – and added a couple more boys, and that’s how the painting came about.”
When Thoma recounted this story, his painting had already been in the Kunsthalle for over ten years and had a firm place in the memory of many visitors. In 1907, after the Kunsthalle acquired Thoma’s two paintings Abendstern (Evening Star) and Hereinbrechende Dämmerung im Schwarzwald (Dusk Falling in the Black Forest), he donated his Brawling Boys together with a picture by Ludwig Schmid-Reutte, a professor at the Karlsruhe Academy.
Basic data
| Title | Brawling Boys |
|---|---|
| Artist | Hans Thoma |
| Date | 1872 |
| Measurements Plastic | H 102cm W 88cm |
| Material | Oil on canvas/board |