Background
Hess was the third son of Karl Ernst Christoph Hess (1755–1828), an engraver.
Hess was the third son of Karl Ernst Christoph Hess (1755–1828), an engraver.
The elder Hess had already acquired a name when in 1806 the elector of Bavaria, having been raised to a kingship by Napoleon, transferred the Düsseldorf academy and gallery to Munich. But historical composition proved to be as contrary to his taste as engraving, and he gave, himself exclusively at last to illustrations of peasant life in the hill country of Bavaria. He became clever alike in representing the people, the animals and the landscape of the Alps, and with constant means of reference to nature in the neighbourhood of Bad Reichenhall, where he at last resided, he never produced anything that was not impressed with the true stamp of a kindly realism.