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_ILLUSTRATED BIOGRAPHIES OF
THE GREAT ARTISTS._
JOHANN FRIEDRICH OVERBECK.
ILLUSTRATED BIOGRAPHIES OF THE GREAT ARTISTS.
_The following volumes, each illustrated with from 14 to 20 Engravings,
are now ready, price 3s. 6d. Those marked with an asterisk are 2s. 6d._
GIOTTO. By HARRY QUILTER, M.A.
FRA ANGELICO. By C. M. PHILLIMORE.
FRA BARTOLOMMEO AND ANDREA DEL SARTO. By LEADER SCOTT.
MANTEGNA AND FRANCIA. By JULIA CARTWRIGHT.
GHIBERTI AND DONATELLO.* By LEADER SCOTT.
LUCA DELLA ROBBIA.* By LEADER SCOTT. [_Nearly ready._
LEONARDO DA VINCI. By Dr. J. PAUL RICHTER.
MICHELANGELO BUONARROTI. By CHARLES CLÉMENT.
RAPHAEL. By N. D'ANVERS.
TITIAN. By R. F. HEATH, M.A.
TINTORETTO. By W. R. OSLER.
CORREGGIO.* By M. COMPTON HEATON.
VELAZQUEZ. By E. STOWE, M.A.
MURILLO.* By ELLEN E. MINOR.
ALBRECHT DÜRER. By R. F. HEATH, M.A.
THE LITTLE MASTERS OF GERMANY. By W. B. SCOTT.
HANS HOLBEIN. By JOSEPH CUNDALL.
OVERBECK. By J. BEAVINGTON ATKINSON.
REMBRANDT. By J. W. MOLLETT, B.A.
RUBENS. By C. W. KETT, M.A.
VAN DYCK AND HALS. By P. R. HEAD, B.A.
FIGURE PAINTERS OF HOLLAND. By LORD RONALD GOWER, F.S.A.
CLAUDE LORRAIN.* By OWEN J. DULLEA. [_In preparation._
WATTEAU.* By J. W. MOLLETT, B.A. [_In preparation._
VERNET AND DELAROCHE. By J. RUUTZ REES.
ROUSSEAU AND MILLET. BY W. E. HENLEY. [_In preparation._
MEISSONIER.* By J. W. MOLLETT, B.A.
SIR JOSHUA REYNOLDS. By F. S. PULLING, M.A.
WILLIAM HOGARTH. By AUSTIN DOBSON.
GAINSBOROUGH AND CONSTABLE. By G. BROCK-ARNOLD, M.A.
ROMNEY AND LAWRENCE.* By LORD RONALD GOWER, F.S.A.
TURNER. By COSMO MONKHOUSE.
SIR DAVID WILKIE. By J. W. MOLLETT, B.A.
CROME AND THE NORWICH SCHOOL.* By C. MONKHOUSE. [_Preparing._
SIR EDWIN LANDSEER. By F. G. STEPHENS.
[Illustration: JOHANN FRIEDRICH OVERBECK.]
_"The whole world without Art would be one great wilderness."_
OVERBECK
BY J. BEAVINGTON ATKINSON
AUTHOR OF
'SCHOOLS OF MODERN ART IN GERMANY,' ETC.
NEW YORK
SCRIBNER AND WELFORD
LONDON
SAMPSON LOW, MARSTON, SEARLE, & RIVINGTON
1882.
TO
THE RIGHT HONOURABLE
A. J. BERESFORD HOPE, ESQ.,
M.P., LL.D.,
THE KIND FRIEND OF ARTISTS,
THE FERVENT UPHOLDER OF CHRISTIAN ART,
This Life
OF
THE CHRISTIAN PAINTER J. FRIEDRICH OVERBECK
IS
_RESPECTFULLY DEDICATED_
BY
THE AUTHOR.
PREFACE.
In offering to the public the first complete biography yet attempted of
the painter Overbeck, I wish to give a few words in explanation. The
task has been far from easy: the materials, though the reverse of
scanty, are scattered: reminiscences of the artist and criticisms on his
works lie as fragments dispersed over the current literature of Germany.
My endeavour has been to fill in vacuities, to thread together a
consistent and connected narrative, and thus, so far as I have been
able, to present a true and lucid history.
My duty has been all the more anxious from the unusual complexity of the
pictorial products falling under review. The scenes are laid amid the
battle of the schools: the periods bring into prominence conflicts
between classic, romantic, and naturalistic styles. The art of Overbeck
was rooted in the olden times, yet in some degree it became quickened by
contact with present life, and took also a personal aspect from the
painter's inner self. The great pictures and the numberless drawings
thus evolved over a space of more than half a century, and here
described from my own knowledge, raise interesting and intricate
questions on which the world remains divided. My care has been to give a
just estimate of these exceptional art manifestations.
Also enter into the art, through the life, conflicts of religious
creeds, strifes between Protestantism and Catholicism, between
Platonism, Mysticism, and Rationalism. In dealing with such delicate and
serious topics I have avoided all controversy, and have ventured only on
the simplest and briefest exposition. My effort has been to state the
case fairly all round, to maintain an even balance, and, above all, to
place the reader, whatever may chance to be his creed or art school, in
a position to form a true judgment.
Likewise fairly to appreciate the artist, it is needful rightly to
comprehend the man. And here, again, perplexities arise from unwonted
combinations. The character is one of the noblest and purest, and yet it
is beset with peculiar infirmities. The portrait offered in these pages
is, I trust, true and individual, toned down into unity, and yet not
left cold or colourless. Such negation would, indeed, do injustice to my
own feelings. For among the cherished recollections of past days are my
visits to Overbeck's studio, stretching over a period of twenty years: I
learned to revere the master and to love his works, and I trust no word
in this little volume may lessen the respect due to an honoured name.
J. B. A.
KENSINGTON,
_May, 1882._
CONTENTS.
CHAPTER I.
LÜBECK--VIENNA.
Birth and Parentage--Early Days in Lübeck--The Artist's learned and
religious Ancestry--His Father Doctor of Laws and Burgomaster--Chart of
the Family--Creed for a Purist Painter--Young Overbeck leaves Lübeck for
Vienna: his Studies in the Academy--Decadence of Art in the Austrian
Capital--Rise of the German Pre-Raphaelite Brotherhood--Conflict between
the Old Party and the New--Overbeck and his Friends expelled from the
Academy--He resolves to make Christian Art the Vocation of his
Life--Leaves Vienna for Rome Page 1
CHAPTER II.
ROME--THE GERMAN BROTHERHOOD.
Overbeck and his brother Artists reach Rome--The German Colony settle in
the Convent of Sant' Isidore--Inspiring surroundings of Art and
Nature--Modes of Study and of Life--Overbeck "a Treasury of Art and
Poetry, a saintly Man"--"The New-Old School," "the Nazarites," provoke
opposition and ridicule--State of Art in Rome: Classic, Romantic,
Christian--First Commission: early Drawings and Pictures--Exhibition in
Palazzo Caffarelli--Overbeck and his Friends join the Roman Catholic
Church--Reasons assigned--Literary circle: Niebuhr, Bunsen, and
Friedrich Schlegel--Frescoes by Overbeck, Cornelius, Veit, and Schadow
in the Casa Bartholdi and the Villa Massimo 19
CHAPTER III.
ROME--GERMANY.
Overbeck marries, two children born--His position in "Monumental
Painting"--Fresco, "The Vision of St. Francis" at Assisi--Inclinations
towards Monastic Life--Journey to Germany--Triumphal Entry into
Munich--The Guest of Cornelius--Pictures in the New
Pinakathek--Correspondence and friendship with Fräulein Emilie
Linder--Visits to Heidelberg, Frankfort, Cologne, and Düsseldorf--Return
to Rome--Present at the opening of Raphael's Tomb in the Pantheon--Views
of Art become more dogmatic and sacerdotal--Three important easel
pictures: "Christ's Agony in the Garden," at Hamburg; "The Marriage of
the Virgin," in Count Raczynski's Gallery, Berlin; "The Triumph of
Religion in the Arts," Frankfort--The Painter's explanatory disquisition
on the last--His habits of work, personal aspect and character 48
CHAPTER IV.
LATE WORKS--CONCLUSION--THE PAINTER AND HIS ART.
Death of Son--Pictures: "The Pietà," in Lübeck; "The Incredulity of St.
Thomas," in the possession of Mr. Beresford Hope--Death of Wife--"The
Assumption of the Madonna," Cologne Cathedral--Second visit to
Germany--Fête in Cologne--Return to Rome--Studio in Garden House on the
Esquiline Hill--Cartoons and Water-colour Drawings, "The Via
Crucis"--Cartoons and Tempera Drawings, "The Seven
Sacraments"--Commissions from Pius IX., his Portrait, Picture for
Quirinal Palace: the Pope's Visit to the Studio--Portraits of the Artist
by various hands--Overbeck's mental habits: his extraordinary
memory--Modes of Study and of Work--Form--Composition--Colour--The
relation of his Art to nature, tradition, and personal
character--Pecuniary rewards--Influence over the contemporary Schools of
Europe--Closing scenes--Death and Burial 76
CHRONOLOGY 109
INDEX 111
LIST OF ILLUSTRATIONS.
PORTRAIT OF OVERBECK _Frontispiece._
PAGE
THE HOLY FAMILY 2
THE NAMING OF ST. JOHN 18
CHRIST IN THE TEMPLE 24
CHRIST BLESSING LITTLE CHILDREN 28
THE CALLING OF ST. JAMES AND ST. JOHN 48
CHRIST'S ENTRY INTO JERUSALEM 58
CHRIST HEALING THE SICK 70
CHRIST FALLING UNDER THE CROSS 76
THE ENTOMBMENT 86
THE RESURRECTION 94
THE CROSS MARKING OVERBECK'S TOMB _Finis._
Chart of the Overbeck Family.
CASPAR OVERBECK,
Merchant, Religious Refugee.
|
CHRISTOPH OVERBECK, Pastor.
|
CASPAR NIKOLAS OVERBECK, D. 1752, Pastor.
|
Total number of Children 8 sons and 6 daughters:
2 sons and 4 daughters died in childhood.
____________________________________________|_______________________________________
| | | | | | |
Johann Levin GEORGE CHRISTIAN OVERBECK, Johann Gottfried August Two
Adolph, Conrad, B. 1713, D. 1786, Daniel, Ferdinand, Friedrich, Daughters
B. 1706, B. 1712, Doctor of Laws. B. 1715, B. 1717, B. 1719, who grew to
Pastor. Pastor. | D. 1802, Apothecary. School womanhood.
| Doctor of Teacher.
| Theology, &c.
_____________________|_________________________________________________
| | |
Conrad, CHRISTIAN ADOLPH OVERBECK, Johann George,
Died at Riga, B. 1755, M. 1781, D. 1821. D. 1819,
Merchant. Doctor of Laws, Syndic, Bürgermeister of Lübeck, &c. Pastor.
|
4 sons and 2 daughters: one son died in childhood.
_________________________________|________________________________________
| | | | |
Christian Gerhard, Johannes, JOHANN FRIEDRICH OVERBECK, Frau Charlotte Frau Elizabeth
B. 1784, D. 1846, D. 1830, B. in Lübeck 1789, M. 1819, Leithoff, Meyer,
Judge, Lübeck. Merchant. D. in Rome 1869 deceased. deceased.
| | The Painter |
Christian Theodore, | | Frau Harms,
B. 1818, D. 1880, | | Lübeck,
Doctor, Senator; | |__________________ living.
left no children. | | |
_____________________|_________________ ____|_________________
| | | | | |
Johannes, Gustav, Arnold, Frau Rath ALFONS MARIA, Daughter of the
Professor, Düsseldorf, Düsseldorf, Reuleaux, Son of the Painter, Painter: died
Doctor, living. living. Berlin, B. 1822, D. 1840. in childhood.
Archæologist, living.
Leipzig,
living.
OVERBECK.
CHAPTER I.
LÜBECK--VIENNA.
Johann Friedrich Overbeck was born, as a tablet on his father's house
records, in Lübeck on the 4th of July, 1789. Among his ancestors were
Doctors of Law and Evangelical Pastors. His parents were good
Protestants; his father was Burgomaster in the ancient city. Seldom has
a life been so nicely preordained as that of the young religious
painter. The light of his coming did not shine, as commonly supposed,
out of surrounding darkness. A visit to his birth-place, expressly made
for this memoir, soon showed me that Overbeck, from his youth upwards,
had been tenderly cared for; that he received a classic education; that
his mind was brought under moral and religious discipline; in short,
that the rich harvest of later years had found its seed-time here within
the family home in Lübeck.
The old house in which Overbeck was born has unfortunately, within the
last few years, been modernised, but the original medallion relief of
the painter's head, life-size, is built into the new façade, and the
former structure can be accurately ascertained as well from the designs
of the adjoining tenements as from the living testimony of the
neighbours.[1] The Overbeck mansion stood in the König Strasse, a
principal thoroughfare in the heart of an old city which may not inaptly
be designated the Nuremberg of Northern Germany. It is not difficult
here on the spot to picture the life of the painter while yet in his
teens. The historic town of Lübeck had enjoyed a signal political,
commercial and artistic epoch. As the head of the Hanseatic League, it
rose to unexampled prosperity. Deputies from eighty confederate
municipalities assembled in the audience-chamber of the Rathhaus;
fortifications, walls and gateways were reared for defence, and merchant
princes made their opulence and love of ostentation conspicuous in
dwellings of imposing and picturesque design; thus pointed gables,
high-pitched overhanging roofs, stamp with mediæval character the
present streets. Then, too, were founded rich ecclesiastical
establishments; then was built the cathedral, containing among other
treasures matchless brasses, a unique rood-loft, and a double triptych,
the masterpiece of Memling. This sacred work made a deep impression on
young Overbeck, and is known to have given a direction to his art. About
the same period was also reared the Marien Kirche, enriched with bronze
sacrament-house, old German triptychs and fine painted glass. This is
the church in which the painter's father, as Burgomaster, had a
distinguished stall, elaborately carved; and now, on visiting the spot,
I find appropriately among the treasures two chefs-d'oeuvre which the
son affectionately wrought for the city of his birth. These churches are
Protestant, but fortunately the worst sign of the Reformation is
whitewash, and so the relics of the past are reverently conserved, and
here in Lübeck, as in Nuremberg, the Madonna still holds her honoured
niche, and the saints yet shine from out the painted window, even as in
after-years the selfsame characters appeared on the canvases of
Overbeck. Amid associations thus sacred, encircled by a family addicted
to learning and piety, to poetry and art, was the tranquil spirit of the
young painter led into meditative paths; and as I took my evening walk
at the setting of the sun by the side of the wooded river, under shadow
of the old gateways and churches, it was not very hard to realize how
the love of nature and of art grew up in the mind of the young student,
and how this city of the past proved a fitting prelude to a noble
life-work which set as its goal the revival of what was best and most
beautiful in the olden times.
The family of Overbeck had been for generations preeminent for learning
and piety, and biographers have scarcely sufficiently taken into account
either the Classic or the Christian inheritance of the painter.
Religious teaching and living came by long lineal descent (see Family
Chart on page xvi.): the great, great, great grandfather, Caspar
Overbeck, was a religious refugee; the next in succession, Christoph,
was a Protestant pastor; and to the same sacred calling belonged his
son, Caspar Nikolas, who lived into the middle of the last century.
After comes the grandfather, George Christian, Doctor of Laws; and among
collaterals signally shines the great-uncle, Johann Daniel Overbeck
(died 1802, aged 88);[2] this memorable man was Doctor of Theology,
Rector of the Lübeck Gymnasium, and a voluminous writer; he published
thirty or more treatises; among the number are 'The Spirit of Religion,'
'Grounds of Agreement in Religion through the Reason and the
Understanding;' also discourses on St. Peter, St. Paul, and Luther.
Facility of pen runs through the family. Two other great-uncles, Johann
Adolph and Levin Conrad Overbeck, brothers of the Doctor of Theology,
were Pastors: furthermore must not be forgotten the uncle, Johann George
(brother of the Burgomaster), who lived till 1819, and is described as a
faithful untiring pastor to an evangelical congregation, who offered his
life a willing sacrifice. "Duty" might be the watch-word of all who bear
the name of Overbeck. Lastly, and not least, appears the pious, learned,
and æsthetic father, Christian Adolph. Though not in holy orders, he
concerned himself variously with religion in the wide and vital sense of
the word, holding it a divine presence, the rule of life, and the
inspirer of all noble work. I should judge he was not dogmatic in creed,
nor rigid in ceremonial. He was philosophic, but had too much heart to
be a rationalist; too much imagination for an anti-supernaturalist. He
was a mystic pietist; religion blending with poetry coloured his whole
mind; revelation, nature, and art, were for him one and indivisible. And
this I believe to have been the mental state of the son while yet under
the parental roof. The sequel will show a change; the incertitude of
speculation could not be sustained, and so anchorage was sought within
an "Infallible Church." Yet for the right reading of a character
curiously subtle and complex, it is needful to realise the fact that the
seeds sown in the homestead were never uprooted, that it was, indeed,
the old stock which sustained the new grafting, and that, to the last, a
poetic mysticism dwelt in the chambers of the artist's mind. And as was
the tree so were the fruits; sprung from a family of preachers, the
painter became an evangelist in his art.
The father, Dr. Christian Adolph Overbeck, as the formative type of the
son, merits a further word.[3] If not quite a genius, he was the model
of a scholar and a gentleman; besides being Burgomaster in the city of
his birth, he was Doctor of Laws, Syndic of the Cathedral Chapter, and
served in important political missions to Paris and St. Petersburg. He
is described "Musis Amicus";[4] and not only the friend of poesy, he was
a poet himself, and by virtue of the duality habitual to his mind
dedicated his pen with singular impartiality to Christ and Apollo; one
volume of verses being entitled 'Anacreon and Sappho,' another,
containing a poem, on 'The Love of God.' These products rise somewhat
above the level of respectable mediocrity, yet they have not escaped the
stigma of platitudes. Goethe, however, did not disdain to make
respectful mention of the poet. The painter inherited in some small
degree the paternal gift; he accompanied with verses the engraved and
published drawings, _Jesus as a Child in the House at Nazareth_. By the
father I have also before me a "new edition," published 1831, of a
collection entitled 'Frizchens Lieder,'[5] so called because penned for
the benefit of the youthful Frederick. The preface makes mention of "my
little Frizchen" thus:--"It were better had he been an angel, but he is
just a human child:" then, facetiously, it is added, "he is less ideal
than saucy and conceited." Those who like myself knew only the solemnity
of the painter in advanced years have a difficulty in supposing in the
child such traits compatible. These songs of the domestic affections
were set to music; the father, as a dilettante complete, cultivated all
the harmonies whether of thought, form, or sound; the home was musical.
The family life composes into a placid, homelike picture. The parents,
though well to do, were far from affluent. The stipends of the busy
Burgomaster and Syndic were small, and he remained comparatively poor.
At the age of twenty-six he married a young widow with money and one
daughter, and domestic cares necessarily thickened with the birth of six
additional children, two daughters and four sons, of whom Frederick was
the youngest. The mother, we are told, was beloved and honoured, and in
addition to ordinary domestic duties, diligently assisted her children
in the preparation of their school lessons; moreover it is expressly
stated that her fortune contributed largely to the household expenses.
The would-be artist could not be considered unfortunate in his worldly
condition; he entered on life removed equally from the extremes of
riches or poverty; his parents were sufficiently well off to make it
possible for him to gratify his tastes in the choice of a profession,
while he was always under such pressure as to render it imperative that
he should put out his full powers. His education within the limits of a
provincial town was liberal; the father kept himself and his household
quiet, student-like, and sequestered from the dissipation of society,
and so all the better could be cultivated the budding faculties of his
offspring. When the children were sufficiently advanced he joined with
other parents in engaging a qualified tutor, and so formed a special
class or superior school. With affection was watched the inclination
towards art of the youngest son, and anxiety lessened as the faculty
strongly declared itself, for above all was dreaded "mediocrity as the
deadly sin of artists." The father held that for success in art as a
profession three conditions were essential; classic training, nobility
of mind, and technical skill. And so in each day the foremost place was
assigned to classic studies. As to the formation of character, religion
stood as the corner-stone, and the maxim for the daily life was "love in
a pure mind." This axiom sounds to me as the key-note to the painter's
lifelong art--an art loving in spirit and kept unspotted from the world.
But the father and son differed in this--that the one was eclectic, the
other exclusive. The father, with the wide toleration of a
poet-philosopher, believed in the possibility of harmoniously combining
styles, Classic, Romantic, and Christian. His views may be judged from
the following:
_The Father's Monition to study the Classics._
With joy I see you constant in the study of the ancients. To the Greeks
and old Romans was it given to stand as the everlasting lawgivers of the
beautiful. Well for you that you read the classics: above all, acquaint
yourself with the glorious forerunner, Homer, of whom almost every line
is a picture. Homer in the right chamber of the heart, and the Bible in
the left--or _vice-versâ_--in this way, it seems to me, you cannot go
far astray.
_Creed for a Purist Painter._
The artist's and poet's mind should be as a spotless mirror: his heart
must be pure and pious, at one with God and all mankind. The path to the
holy Temple of Art lies apart from the world, and the painter will go on
his way all the more unassailed if he stand aloof from the temptations
of the senses. And if the artist's mind be a temple, then should find
place therein only the figures of saints and the semblances of holy
things; and even in profane representations a heavenly spirit should
reign. The mind is raised by the contemplation of the master-works of
genius, thus art reaches the highest summit.
It is not to be supposed that the youth while in Lübeck reached the
father's ideal; but within a stone's throw of the house lay a Gymnasium,
including a Drawing School of which the great uncle, Dr. Johann Daniel
Overbeck, had been head master. Here, on the spot, I am told the nephew
received from a certain Professor Federau instruction in art, and I have
before me a drawing, the earliest that has come to my knowledge, which
proves that the pupil was at least painstaking. The subject, in
accordance with the father's precept, is Homeric, the well-known meeting
of Ulysses and Telemachus.[6] After the prevailing manner of the period,
the style is classic, according to the French school of David, and a
Greek portico appropriately finds a place in the background. Young
Overbeck discovered in the sequel how much he had to learn, and to
unlearn; he closed Homer to open his Bible.
The time came for a change in the scene of action, the art resources of
a small provincial town were exhausted, and the necessity arose for
thorough academic training elsewhere. The choice in those days was not
extended, and after due consideration the election fell in favour of
Vienna. Accordingly, in March, 1806, at the age of seventeen, young
Overbeck left Lübeck. The home-parting was tender, and might have been
heart-rending could the future have been read. Never were son and
parents to meet again. Frederick in sundry years, when full of honours,
visited Germany, but he seemed to shrink from a return to the scenes of
his youth; change in religion may have made contact painful. Yet we are
told that closest communication was kept up by constant correspondence;
that the father affectionately watched his son's illustrious career and
read with lively satisfaction all announcements in the public journals.
The mother died in 1820, the father a year after: for forty years they
had been lovingly united. I have visited the retired "God's-acre,"
beyond the gates, removed from the noisy traffic of the town, and not
without difficulty discovered the grave of father and mother. So dense
was the overgrowth of years, that not a letter on the massive stone
could be seen; but the old man of the place, tearing away the thick
mantle of ivy, revealed the words, "Here rest in God Elizabeth Overbeck,
and Christian Adolph Overbeck, Burgomaster."
On reaching Vienna, the super-sensuous painter did not find a bed of
roses: his tastes were fastidious, his habits exclusive, his aspirations
impracticable. Of course his art remained as yet unremunerative; thus
his means were scanty, and the friends he might have hoped to make
turned out enemies. And it cannot be denied that the state of things in
Vienna was enough to discourage and disgust an earnest, truth-seeking
student. The Academy into which the Christian artist entered was under
the direction of Friedrich Füger, a painter of the French type, not
without renown, but given over to the service of Jupiter, Prometheus,
and Venus, and when he chanced to turn to sacred subjects, such as _The
Death of Abel_ and _The Reading Magdalen_, affectation and empty
pretence were his resource. I have seldom seen works more contemptible.
Overbeck was in despair, and wrote to a friend that he had fallen among
a vulgar set, that every better feeling, every noble thought, was
suppressed within the Academy, and that, losing all faith in humanity
and in art, he turned inwardly on himself. This transcendental strain, I
cannot but think, came in some measure from the conceit incident to
youth; self-complaisancy was certainly a habit of mind which the painter
persistently cultivated as a virtue.
Four years' work within an organised academy could not be otherwise than
a gain to a tyro who had everything to learn. Director Füger was at
least thoroughly trained; talent and industry had early won him the
distinction of pensioner to Rome, and he subsequently executed important
frescoes in Naples, which obtain honourable mention in the history of
the times. His school might be bad, but still it was a school; and the
fact cannot be controverted that Overbeck issued from it an artist. He
learnt what his father had laid down as essential to success, drawing,
composition, technique, and his advance was such, that while in Vienna
he commenced, and in part painted, _Christ's Entry into Jerusalem_, a
prized possession to this day in the Marien Kirche, Lübeck. Moreover, I
am inclined to think that under Füger he was grounded in the art of
wall-painting, not only as a manipulative method, but as a system of
composition and decoration; otherwise it is hard to understand how,
shortly after arriving in Rome, he knew more about fresco than the
Italians themselves. Overbeck and his master, however, became all the
more irreconcilable because the discords lay less in the letter than in
the spirit.
In order to realise Overbeck's artistic and mental difficulties here in
Vienna, and afterwards in Rome, it may be well in fewest words to
indicate the perplexed state of things in Germany generally--a wide
theme on which volumes have been written. We have to consider that
Europe had suffered under the throes of the great French Revolution, and
that then followed the galling despotism of Napoleon. Art and literature
lay frozen and paralysed, and Overbeck in Lübeck and Vienna, like
Cornelius in Düsseldorf, found in tyrannous sway the pseudo-classic
school of the French David, cold as marble, rigid as petrifaction,
spasmodic as a galvanised muscle. But the Germans, especially the more
intellectual sort, smarting under the yoke, were all the while gathering
strength to reclaim nationality as their birthright. The reaction came
through the romantic movement, otherwise the revival of the poetry and
the art of the Middle Ages. Overbeck fell under the influence: in his
Lübeck home he read Tieck's 'Phantasies on Art,' and thirsted for the
regeneration drawing near. In Rome the spell heightened; thinkers such
as Frederick Schlegel brought over proselytes, and the painter's early
frescoes from Tasso's 'Jerusalem Delivered,' came as the specific
products of the new era. But the School of Romance wore two aspects; the
one, Poetic and Chivalrous; the other expressly Christian; and Overbeck
was not content to exchange Homer and Virgil for Dante and Tasso, he
turned from the age of Pericles and Augustus to the nativity of Christ.
And it seemed to him that the pure spring of Christian Art had, not only
in Vienna but throughout Europe, been for long diverted and corrupted,
and so he sought out afresh the living source, and casting on one side
his contemporaries, took for his guides the pre-Raphaelite masters. Such
is the relation in which he stands to the Romantic movement.
But the election made in favour of an art born of Christianity proved
for Overbeck the severer conflict, because Germany, in the generation
scarcely passed away, had experienced a studious classic revival under
the critic Winckelmann and the painters Mengs and Carstens. Goethe, too,
a tyrant in power, had thrown his weight into the classic scale, and,
much to the chagrin of the young painter, declared that the highest
Christian Art was but the perfecting of humanity. Moreover, classicism
had been brought within the painter's home by a five years' sojourn in
Lübeck of Carstens, the Flaxman of Germany. The father befriended the
poor artist, and being well-read in Greek and Roman authors, supplied
him, among other needs, with ideas for his classic compositions. I deem
these facts should be duly considered; it is wholly false to ignore the
presence of a classic element in the Christian Art of Overbeck; and just
as the purest religious painters of Italy borrowed from the Pagans, so
the great Christian Artist of our times culled from the antique all he
could assimilate. It is clear to me, judging from the internal evidence
of his works, that as a student Overbeck went through the usual course
of drawing from the plaster cast. Many are the passages in his
compositions which might be quoted in point, particularly Biblical
incidents, such as the _Expulsion from Paradise_, wherein appear
undraped figures. Here are seen to advantage the generic form, the
typical beauty, the harmony of line, the symmetry, which distinguish the
Classic from the Gothic. Furthermore, Overbeck from first to last
eschewed the dress actually worn in the Holy Land, and deliberately
draped Christ and the Apostles as Greek sages and Roman senators. I
believe in so doing he was on the whole wise, his motive being to remove
his characters from the sphere of common life; even for him, the most
single-minded of men, art was a compromise: but while borrowing thus
largely both in figure and costume from the Classic, it were vain to
contend that his creations had an exclusively Christian origin. I may
add that I do not think the controversy lies so much between religions
as between historic Schools of Art. Overbeck was so much the artist
that, like Raphael, he made beauty wherever extant his own, only caring
that whatever was taken from the Pagan should be baptized with the
Christian spirit. Thus much indeed is confessed in his explanatory text
to his master-work the _Triumph of Religion in the Arts_. Therefore in
quoting his own words the subject may fairly be allowed to drop: he
writes: "Although heathenism, as such, should be looked upon by the
Christian painter with decided disdain, yet the arts as well as the
literature of the ancients may be turned to advantage, as the children
of Israel employed the gold and silver vessels which they brought with
them out of Egypt in the service of the true God in His Temple, after
melting them down and consecrating them anew."
The much abused Director Füger was the champion, as we have seen, of
hybrid classicism, hence the hostility between master and pupil. The
precise attitude assumed by the contending parties it is not very easy
to define; but that there were faults on both sides may easily be
conceded; that each was in extreme is also evident, and that Overbeck
was the last man to yield an inch or to meet half way is equally
certain. The fatal conflict broke out in differences as to the modes of
study: of the Academy we should now say that it was conventional, wedded
to false methods, in short, that it had wholly lost the right road in
the devious paths of decadence. The young innovators, not choosing to
conform, assumed a defiant position analogous to, though not identical
with, that taken half a century later by our English pre-Raphaelite
brethren. The study of the early masters in the royal collection they
preferred to the routine of the Academy; thus Dürer and Perugino were
held up in challenge to Correggio and Rubens, the idols of the day. Then
the discord was equally violent as to the right mode of studying nature.
The charge made against the German pre-Raphaelite Brotherhood was that
they dealt with the life-model crudely and inartistically; on the
contrary, Overbeck and his adherents declared that they sought for
nothing else than truth, only they held that nature should not be
studied superficially, but with the end of deciphering her hidden
meanings. The human body they looked on as a temple, the face they read
as the mirror of the mind. All this, and much more besides, though then
a novelty, is now an old story; the doctrine that the bodily form is
moulded on the spiritual being, the speculations concerning the
relations between the "objective" and the "subjective," the outward and
the inward, the correspondence between the world of sense and the world
of thought, have one and all taken definite place in the history of
mental philosophy. We have here fully to realise that Overbeck had
breathed the atmosphere of mystic spiritualism in Lübeck; hence his
entrance into "spiritual art," hence his "soul pictures." His mind being
thus sublimated, he looked down upon the Viennese Academicians as common
and unclean; a rupture naturally ensued, and he and his companions being
in the minority, were with a strong hand, and with little ceremony,
expelled from the classes. The blow for the moment seemed overwhelming,
yet it brought salvation. Had Overbeck remained chained to the Academy,
art through him would not have seen a new birth. His course became
clear: he quitted Vienna for Rome, the city of his desire.
In the fourth and last year of the painter's apprenticeship in the
Austrian capital, was begun a really arduous composition, _Christ's
Entry into Jerusalem_.[7] The picture is of the utmost import as
affording the only evidence of the artist's attainments in Vienna. In
the first place to be remarked is the striking fact that not a vestige
remains of the French school of David, or of the showy masters of the
Italian decadence; the work, indeed, might have been designed as a
protest against the Viennese Academy, and as a justification of the
painter's revolt. The style adopted is conjointly that of the Italian
pre-Raphaelite and of the early German and Flemish masters. The
background is built up into a high horizon giving support to the
foreground figures; the colours are deep and lustrous, and so far
contrast favourably with the weaker and cruder tones unfortunately
adopted at a later period. The costume is a deliberate compromise
between the classic and the naturalistic. Nowhere does the artist
venture, as Horace Vernet, on the Bedouin dress. Christ is clothed in a
flowing robe, while the Apostles, as in the compositions of Raphael,
belong less to the Holy Land than to the Roman Forum. This treatment of
draperies was adhered to through all subsequent works, the only change
being further generalisation and a wider departure from naturalism. In
fact it is curious to observe in this early work how much nature enters;
figures and incidents come direct from life, as witness portraits of
contemporaries, groups of little children, young mothers and aged women.
Such passages are happily destitute of what the Viennese academicians
called "style;" they have more of the old German angularity than of "the
Grecian bend." Yet always with Overbeck Beauty is present, only not
thrust in, as by the academicians of the period, in violation of Truth
and Goodness. Also very noteworthy is the impress of thought in the
heads, hands, and attitudes; the painter, as we have seen, came of a
family of thinkers, and the purport of his art was to give expression to
mind. Here again he took as his teachers the early masters, so that
these figures, though more or less studied from nature, might seem to
have walked out from an old panel picture, yet they are more than
complications, they are impressed with the painter's own individuality.
Altogether the work marks not only a starting-point in Overbeck's life,
but a new era in the art of the nineteenth century.
The composition by lapse of time gains biographic and historic value
through the introduction, in accordance with the practice of the old
masters, of contemporary portraits. The painter has placed among the
spectators his father, in character of Burgomaster, also close by, his
mother, a remarkably shrewd old lady. His wife, memorable as a beauty,
is grouped with the three Marys, and by her side sports the painter's
much-loved son, a boy, palm-branch in hand, rejoicing with the
multitude. Nor are the pilgrim painters in Rome forgotten: Overbeck and
his brother artists, Cornelius and others, appear at respectful
distance, gazing on Christ riding into Jerusalem.
Overbeck, before quitting Vienna, pretty much determined his vocation:
he resolved to dedicate his life to Christian Art. On the point of
departure, in writing to a friend in Lübeck, he takes a retrospective
view, and also points to the future. He recalls evening walks under the
shade of trees with congenial companions; he remembers earnest
conversations on poetry, painting, and other manifestations of the
beautiful, yet still something remained wanting. True art, he writes, he
had sought in vain: "Oh, I was so full of it, my whole fancy was
possessed by Madonnas and Christs; I bore these impressions about with
me, I cherished them, but nowhere could I find response." In Vienna, as
we have seen, the desire of his soul remained unsatisfied. His conflicts
were painful, but once for all he declares, "I will abide by the Bible;
I elect it as my standing-point." A few friends were like-minded, and
one especially, who had come from Italy, encouraged a pilgrimage to the
land of Christian Art. Accordingly, Overbeck packed up his small worldly
possessions, of which the canvas of _Christ's Entry into Jerusalem_ was
the most considerable, and at length he reached Rome as a haven of rest.
FOOTNOTES:
[Footnote 1: The Overbeck house, when I sought it out in 1880, was
rebuilt and retenanted; the ground floor happens to be now occupied by a
bookseller and fancy stationer, who sustains intact the Protestant
character of the establishment. In vain I enquired for engravings from
Overbeck; the nearest approach to religious art was a portrait of Luther
in chromo-lithography!]
[Footnote 2: See 'Leben Herrn Johann Daniel Overbeck, weiland Doctors
der Theologie und Rectors des Lübeckischen Gymnasiums, von einem nahen
Verwandten, und vormaligen Schüler des Verewigten.' Lübeck, 1803.]
[Footnote 3: See 'Zur Erinnerung an Christian Adolph Overbeck, beider
Rechte Doctor und Bürgermeister zu Lübeck.' Lübeck, 1830.]
[Footnote 4: I have seen in the Public Library, Lübeck, the engraved
portrait inscribed with the above words; the head bears a striking
resemblance to the well-known features of the son: the profile shows a
fine intellectual type, the forehead is ample and overhanging, the
coronal region full, the eye searching and earnest, the upper lip long,
the mouth large and firmly set. The last was not the most beautiful
feature in the painter's remarkable face.]
[Footnote 5: 'Frizchens Lieder, herausgegeben von Christian Adolph
Overbeck: neue Ausgabe.' Hamburg, Verlag von August Campe, 1831.]
[Footnote 6: This juvenile exercise, probably only a copy, was given by
young Overbeck to his master, and is now in the Town Library; it is
washed in with Indian ink, measures two feet by one foot nine inches,
and is signed and dated "F. Overbeck, 1805-21 April." The Gymnasium,
like the House, has recently been rebuilt, but the continuity of
learning remains unbroken--boys flock to the school as in the painter's
youth. The adjoining Town Library also contains the original cartoon,
drawn in Rome, for one of the frescoes illustrative of Tasso in the
Villa Massimo, length about ten feet; likewise the cartoon of the Vision
of St. Francis, painted in fresco in Sta. Maria degli Angeli, near
Assisi; the cartoon is about twenty feet long, the figures are
life-size.]
[Footnote 7: This picture, on canvas, is nearly eight feet long by six
feet high, the figures are about three feet. The 'Lübeckische Blätter'
states that "Overbeck began the work in Vienna in 1809, in the fourth
year of his art study, and there completed the background and the
figures in the middle plane, and that it was taken by him to Rome in
1810." In the course of time the foreground figures were introduced, but
not till 1824 did the picture reach completion. It bears the signature
and date "J. F. Overbeck, 1824." Thus fifteen years elapsed between the
first touch and the last, and some ten further years passed before the
canvas came to the artist's native city. I carefully examined the
painting in the Marien Kirche in October, 1880, and found it in perfect
preservation, the colours unchanged, the surface untouched by time or
restoration. The picture differs from the illustration to these pages.]