Karinger fully dedicated himself to painting only after his military career had ended. In his works he often expressed different, mainly emotional, moods in nature, hence he is classified as a romantic landscape painter. He admired the high mountainous world only “from below” because he was not a mountaineer like Marko Pernhart. Karinger was the first to organize exhibitions of the artists’ society in Ljubljana. He was familiar with the inner life of modern man, so he included this aspect in his portraits, particularly those of his nearest and dearest.