Overbeck, Friedrich
Overbeck, Friedrich
Convert and painter of religious subjects, b. at Lübeck, 3 July, 1789; d. at Rome, 12 November, 1869. Overbeck is one of the most fascinating figures in the realm of modern Christian art. He was the soul of that romantic school of painters who, under the name of “Nazarites”, exerted great influence on the formation of the German religious art of the nineteenth century. When eighteen years old, Overbeck became a pupil at the Academy of Fine Arts at Vienna. After he had attained proficiency he quickly withdrew from the compulsion and formalism of the academy, and went with three friends to Italy and above all to Rome as the great centre for the exercise of art. In 1810 he made his home in the monastery of the Irish Franciscans at Rome, San Isidoro, which was then unoccupied. He was the first to recognize that the tradition of ecclesiastical art had been completely suspended by the Reformation and the iconoclastic outbreaks, and that later the stifling overgrowth of Humanism introduced elements into it, which had cast a mythological garb over the Catholic ideal of art. His work was, by the power of genius, to throw a bridge over the period of stagnation and depression that had lasted for three centuries. Overbeck lived to see the complete success of his titanic labours. At Rome the father of the “Nazarites”, as perhaps he may now be called, was joined by the later masters, Cornelius, Schadow, and Philip Veit, and these men united together into a school. It was Overbeck’s art and studies that brought him back to the Church, and the mystical power of his piety alone empowered him to produce his lofty creations. The series of frescoes of the history of Joseph in Egypt in the house called Casa Bartholdi, those illustrating Tasso’s “Jerusalem Delivered” in the villa of Prince Massimo, and above all that wonderful composition “The Miracle of Roses” in the Portiuncula chapel at Assisi, astonished the world by modern technic, completely independent grasp of the subject, and most of all by proper relation of the painting to the dominating sister art of architecture. Overbeck was not able personally to develop the ideal he had formed, the adornment of northern, especially German churches with frescoes, but his school, largely as represented by Eduard von Steinle, has partially carried out his wishes.
The influence of Overbeck’s spirit was by no means limited to Germany. France, particularly, understood the graphic speech of this new religious art; Belgium, Poland, and Spain followed in the footsteps of the master at Rome. The reputation of the new leader of art was spread throughout all classes of society, largely by his smaller works, especially by his Biblical cartoons. His oil paintings are conspicuous for their qualities but are not numerous; the most noted of them, “The Triumph of Religion in the Arts”, is the chief ornament of the Städel Gallery at Frankfort. If the work produced by Overbeck appears meagre, when contrasted with the amount put forth by artists who came after him, the reason is to be found in the subtility of his manner, owing to which he could execute masterly work, even in old age, as the wonderful cartoons of the “Seven Sacraments”, and the sketches for the decoration of the cathedral of Diakovár, which were only used in part. Hostility to the art of Overbeck and his followers, the “Nazarite” school, did not fail to appear during Overbeck’s lifetime, nor is it lacking now. Some say that the “Nazarites”, most of all Overbeck, Veit, Führich, and Steinle, have introduced Italian art into Northern Europe, and have made German ecclesiastical art, which was stern and austere, shallow and insipidly sweet. Of the same opinion as these “orthodox” artists are the “moderns”, who assert that the “Nazarite” canons of art are outstripped and antiquated. To these men, style, the canons, and dogmas of art are superfluous, stereotyped, and out-of-date. Overbeck and his companions have been justified by their extraordinary success as far as regards ecclesiastical art, which must always be a religious art. Their influence may be recognized also in the closely related art of architecture, at least as far as the Germanic people are concerned.
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HOWITT, Friedrich Overbeck, sein Leben und Schaffen, ed. by BINDER (Freiburg, 1886); ATKINSON, J. F. Overbeck: a memoir (London, 1882).
C.M. KAUFMANN Transcribed by Richard Hemphill
The Catholic Encyclopedia, Volume XICopyright © 1911 by Robert Appleton CompanyOnline Edition Copyright © 2003 by K. KnightNihil Obstat, February 1, 1911. Remy Lafort, S.T.D., CensorImprimatur. +John Cardinal Farley, Archbishop of New York
Fuente: Catholic Encyclopedia
Overbeck, Friedrich
a distinguished German painter, to whom is justly awarded a large share of the merit for the movement in the early part of this century from which arose the modern German school of art, was born at Lubeck July 3, 1789. He began his studies as an artist at Vienna in 1806 but having adopted and continued to persist in carrying out certain notions of art, and the mode of studying it, essentially different from those inculcated in the academy, he was expelled along with certain other students who entertained the same views, and in 1809 set out for Rome. There he was soon afterwards joined by the now world-wide renowned painters Cornelius and Schadow; and these three, animated with similar ideas, and mutually encouraging one another, laid the foundation of a school that in no small degree influences the taste for art in Europe at the present time. The old German school of painting, partly under the influence of the dominant French taste, and partly guided by the maxims and practice of Mengs (q.v.), had been seeking inspiration almost exclusively from classic sources, and drawing its technical principles from the study of the later painters of Italy. But coincident with the casting off of the trammels of modern French criticism and ancient forms in literature, there had been growing up a desire for a return to a less academic or eclectic system in art; and Friedrich Schlegel, a leading critical advocate of the Romantic school in literature, was the herald and prophet of the new school of national German art. Overbeck was well prepared to become one of the advocates and propagators of these new ideas and, together with his two celebrated friends and a host of followers, the new school rapidly developed. He paid entire devotion to the style of the Italian artists prior to the period of the Renaissance, particularly Fra Angelico (b. 1387; d. 1455), and manifested a strong aversion to a dependence on the form of drawing in the style of Greek or classic art in works embodying religious subjects; although many of his compatriots Cornelius, for instance modified or perhaps enlarged these ideas, and studied the works of Michael Angelo and those of Raphael’s later style executed under the influence of classic art. Overbeck first became noted by a picture of the Madonna, which he painted at Rome in 1811. He was next employed, along with Cornelius and others, by the Prussian consul, general Bartholdi. to execute certain frescos illustrating the history of Joseph; the Selling of Joseph; and the Seven lean Years being the subjects assigned to him.
After completing these, he painted in fresco, in the villa of the marchese Massimi, five large compositions from Tasso’s Jerusalem Delivered. In 1814 he and several of his artistic brethren abjured Lutheranism, and embraced the Roman Catholic religion. In 1815 he completed Christ at the house of Martha and Mary, which went far to secure his great reputation; but his grand picture, Christ entering Jerusalem (about eight feet by five and a half), finished in the’ following year for the Marienkirche at Lubeck, was that which may be said to have established his fame: there can be little hesitation in saying that, despite its crudenesses, it was in many respects one of the grandest scriptural pictures which had been painted since the decay of art initaly. Though a slow worker his design being first elaborately thought out, and then laboriously corrected the productions of a man who had been for nearly half a century constantly working are far too numerous to be mentioned here, even if we had the materials for completing the list. Overbeck’s chief work is a fresco at Assisi, The Miracle of Roses of St. Francis. His oil-pictures are inferior to his frescos, being dry and weak in color. His great picture, The Influence of Religion on Art, preserved in the Stadel Institute at Frankfort, and well known from the engraving, is an admirable composition, and is indeed the most favorable specimen of his powers as a painter in oil-colors. In this vast production he has sought to symbolize in a single design the development of art including music, architecture, sculpture, and painting under the influence of Christianity. Christ in the act of blessing, and the Virgin recording the Magnificat, occupy the middle of the upper compartment of the picture, while the saints and prophets of the Old and the apostles of the New Testament are assembled around, and the representatives of the several arts fill the different stages or compartments into which the picture is divided. It is a work full of learning, thought, and fine feeling, but one which to understand, much less to do full justice to, it is necessary to study from the artist’s own point of view, and with a clear conception of his central idea-to an ordinary spectator by no means an easy matter; He executed a great many drawings remarkable for high feeling, most of which have been engraved. One of his last undertakings, a series of designs from the Evangelists, delicately engraved in the line manner, is a work of high excellence. He died at Rome Nov. 12, 1869, and was buried in one of the churches of the Eternal City in tribute to his eminent services to sacred art. The works of Overbeck are marked by unflagging invention, great refinement and delicacy of expression, considerable power of drawing, and a style of composition which presents his design with the greatest conceivable perspicuity. Where there is obscurity, as there sometimes is, it rests in the idea and not in the manner of its presentation.
But his treatment of his themes is essentially subjective: in other words, he seems to have always sought to carry out Schlegel’s principle that in all Christian themes the treatment must be spiritual and symbolic rather than human and dramatic. Hence his works display a calm devotional beauty and simplicity rather than energy or brilliancy of style. This spirituality and symbolism of style and thought rise in the works of Overbeck not infrequently into grandeur, and are always impressive; but often, even in his hands, they run into coldness, obscurity, and mannerism. But the nobleness and purity of aim, the great artistic knowledge and power, the fine poetic genius which pervades almost every production of his pencil, and his singleness of purpose, must always secure for the name of Friedrich Overbeck a high place in the history of art, and one of the very highest among the painters of the 19th century (Enyl. Cyclop.). See Nagler, Kinstler-Lexikon, s.v.; Raczynski, Histoire de l’Art Allemand modern, Brockhaus, Conversations- Lexikon, s.v.