Carl Maria Nicolaus Hummel - Campagnalandschaft am Abend - 1845

At the age of 21, Carl Hummel became known to a wider audience in Germany and immediately traveled to Italy. There, he lived for a few years mainly in Rome and created several views from the adjacent mountain regions, which had become extremely popular at the time: panoramic landscapes in dramatically illuminated morning or evening moods, with soft color gradients and a sense of spaciousness, reminiscent of the monumental approach and expansive horizontal format developed by Carl Rottmann in the 1820s (see "Italian Landscape," 1826/27, Von der Heydt Museum Wuppertal).

In Hummel's paintings, the transition from classical-romantic to naturalistic landscape perception is clearly evident. Geographic characteristics, as well as the attire of the depicted figures, place the panorama in the Colli Albani. Ludwig Richter wrote in his "Memoirs": "The Alban Hills bear the character of charming beauty everywhere [...]. From the lovely heights adorned with the richest foliage, the gaze sweeps over the vast sea and the Campagna, over the distant Rome to the solitary [Mount] Soracte, and at every point, the scent of ancient, classical legends hovers."

Source: Albertinum