Returning Home, c. 1865

In his painting Coming Home, Otto von Thoren (1828–1889) makes a point of giving a true-to-detail, realistic representation of the Hungarian Gray Steppe cattle walking toward the viewer along an earthy dirt road against the light. Still bright, the cloudy evening sky with its impressive light atmosphere takes up more than half of the height of the upright-format picture. The evening glow is becoming visible around the edge of the dark clouds, especially—shining through in contrastive orange—in a narrow strip on the left horizon. A military officer and, at the time the painting was created, still a self-taught artist, von Thoren took trips to Hungary from the beginning of the 1860s in order to be inspired, like many other artists of his generation, by the scenic charm of the Hungarian lowlands. The artist became best known as an animal painter.

AGW, 2021