In the Hammock, 1876

About the Work

The perfect idyll: swinging idly in the hammock in the shady garden. Thoma painted this scene the year before his marriage to the flower painter Cella Berteneder. It shows his future bride with a child in her lap. And yet they both look annoyingly stiff, as if they do not know each other very well. The luxuriant green of the setting in which they seem to be floating becomes unsettlingly gloomy in the background. What at first sight seems to be a tranquil picture of mother and child leads the viewer - upon closer examination - into a strange dream world.