In the 1920s, Hofer adopted a style that would remain distinctive throughout his paintings until his death. His works from the interwar period are among his most sought-after pieces today, for many of them suffered a tragic fate in 1943: a fire destroyed Hofer's studio during the first major bombing raid on Berlin, destroying most of the works he had stored there.
“Mädchen am Fenster mit Blattpflanzen” (Girl at the Window with Plants) combines two critical themes in the artist’s work: Just like the figures lingering at the window, the female figures surrounded by flowers, plants, or fruit also constitute an essential motif group within his oeuvre. Between 1913 and 1952, Hofer created several paintings featuring these very elements, translating a subject familiar from European art history into his own contemporary visual and formal language. Depictions from the Quattrocento, such as Sandro Botticelli's “Primavera” (Uffizi, Florence) or Leonardo da Vinci's “Ginevra de' Benci” (National Gallery of Art, Washington, D.C.), in which the female protagonists, surrounded by symbolically charged plants, gaze into the distance with their eyes turned from the viewer.

Without any specific spatial or temporal reference, Hofer places his female protagonist in an almost stage-like pictorial space. Framed by a sparse backdrop, hinted architectural fragments, a few potted plants, and a bright red curtain, the distinctive depiction, with its intrinsic melancholic undertone and exceptionally strong, contrasting colors, conveys a palpable emotional impact of dignified, timeless restraint and detachment, as well as a strong appeal. “Their quiet but intense aura is largely based on the austere composition and a formal language of restrained expressiveness that preserves the subject but does not merely depict it, the secret of which is probably the barely noticeable yet inseparable combination of color and form [...].” (Karl Hofer, in: Erinnerungen eines Malers, Berlin 1953, quoted from: Exhibition catalog Karl Hofer. Von Lebensspuk und stiller Schönheit, Hamburg 2012, p. 126)
The crossed arms, the dreamy, averted gaze, and the closed curtain render the outside world forgotten. The depiction thus forms a direct antithesis to the industrialized society that Hofer describes in his essay “Kultur und Zivilisation” (Culture and Civilization) as the “Benzinwelt” (gasoline world). Amidst the noise, speed, and hectic bustle of the big city of Berlin, Hofer painted—in keeping with his nature—silence. [CH]