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Encyclopedia Britannica - Main :: ORC-PAI |
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OVERBECK, JOHANN FRIEDRICH (1789-1869) , German painter, the reviver of " Christian art " in the 19th century, was born in Lubeck on the 4th of July 1789. His ancestors for three generations had been Protestant pastors; his father was doctor
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The young artist left Lubeck in March 1806, and entered as student the academy of Vienna, then under the direction of F. H. Fuger, a painter of some renown, but of the pseudo-classic school of the French David. Here was gained thorough knowledge, but the teachings and associations proved unendurable to the sensitive, spiritual-minded youth. Overbeck wrote to a friend that he had fallen among a vulgar set, that every noble thought was suppressed within the academy and that losing all faith in humanity he turned inwardly on himself. These words are a key to his future position and art. It seemed to him that in Vienna, and indeed throughout Europe, the pure springs of Christian art had been for centuries diverted and corrupted, and so he sought out afresh the living source, and, casting on one side his contemporaries, took for his guides the early and pre-Raphaelite painters of Italy. At the end of four years, differences had grown so irreconcilable that Overbeck and his band of followers were expelled from the academy. True art, he writes, he had sought in Vienna in vain" Oh! I was full of it; my whole fancy was possessed by Madonnas and Christs, but nowhere could I find response." Accordingly he left for Rome, carrying his half-finished canvas " Christ's Entry into Jerusalem," as the charter of his creed" I will abide by the Bible; I elect it as my standing
Overbeck in 1810 entered Rome, which became for fifty-nine years the centre of his unremitting labour. He was joined by a goodly . company, including Cornelius, Wilhelm Schadow and Philip Veit, who took up their abode in the old Franciscan convent of San Isidoro on the Pincian Hill, and were known among friends and enemies by the descriptive epithets " the Nazarites," " the pre-Raphaelites," " the new-old school," " the German-Roman artists," " the church-romantic painters," " the German patriotic and religious painters." Their precept was hard and honest work and holy living; they eschewed the antique as pagan
Francia and the young Raphael. The characteristics of the style thus educed were nobility of idea, precisionand even hardness of outline, scholastic composition, with the addition of light, shade and colour, not for allurement, but chiefly for perspicuity and completion of motive. Overbeck was mentor in the movement
Faith in a mission begat enthusiasm among kindred minds, and timely commissions followed. The Prussian consul
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illustration
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Fifty years of the artist's laborious life were given to oil and easel paintings, of which the chief
Overbeck belongs to eclectic schools, and yet was creative; he ranks among thinkers, and his pen was hardly less busy than his pencil. He was a minor poet, an essayist and a voluminous letter-writer. His style is wordy and tedious; like his art it is borne down with emotion and possessed by a somewhat morbid " subjectivity." His pictures were didactic, and used as means of propagandas for his artistic and religious faith, and the teachings of such compositions as the " Triumph of Religion and the Sacraments " he enforced by rapturous literary effusions. His art was the issue of his life: his constant thoughts, cherished in solitude and chastened by prayer, he transposed into pictorial forms, and thus were evolved countless and much-prized drawings and cartoons, of which the most considerable are the Gospels, forty cartoons (1852); Via Crucis, fourteen water-colour drawings (x857); the Seven Sacraments, seven cartoons (1861). Over-beck's compositions, with few exceptions, are engraved. His life-work he sums up in the words " Art to me is as the harp of David, whereupon I would desire that psalms should at all times be sounded to the praise of the Lord." He died in Rome in 1869, aged eighty, and lies buried in San Bernardo, the church wherein he worshipped. There are biographies by J. Beavington Atkinson (1882) and Howitt (r886). (J. B. A.) End of Article: OVERBECK, JOHANN FRIEDRICH (1789-1869) If you wish, you can link directly to this article.
<a href="http://jcsm.org/StudyCenter/Encyclopedia/ORC_PAI/OVERBECK_JOHANN_FRIEDRICH_1789.html"> OVERBECK, JOHANN FRIEDRICH (1789-1869) </a> |
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