Serpentara Landscape with the Procession of the Magi

The Serpentara, a wild and Romantic stretch of mountain countryside east of Rome frequented by German artists for their plein air studies, offered rich pickings for Koch, who was the man who discovered it. Here he made sketches that he later combined with biblical scenes to mix the genres of history and landscape painting. Although he primarily dedicated himself to landscape works, he pointed them up in a Late Classicist idiom by including scenes from the Bible. He treats the figures and the countryside as equals. The procession of the Magi is supplemented by mythological and genre-like ancillary scenes, such as Narcissus, studying his reflection in the water in the left foreground. Koch’s combination of genres is the result of his having discovered Old Italian painting at the beginning of the 19th century. The view of art he developed as a consequence led to him emerging as one of the leading lights of the Nazarenes, who resided in Rome as of 1810. His attempt to rejuvenate art by resorting to old painting is also evidenced by the choice of wood rather than canvas and the preference for highly luminous paints. (Kathrin DuBois)