Johann Friedrich Overbeck
Encyclopedia
Germany
Germany , officially the Federal Republic of Germany , is a federal parliamentary republic in Europe. The country consists of 16 states while the capital and largest city is Berlin. Germany covers an area of 357,021 km2 and has a largely temperate seasonal climate...
painter
Painting
Painting is the practice of applying paint, pigment, color or other medium to a surface . The application of the medium is commonly applied to the base with a brush but other objects can be used. In art, the term painting describes both the act and the result of the action. However, painting is...
and member of the Nazarene movement
Nazarene movement
The name Nazarene was adopted by a group of early 19th century German Romantic painters who aimed to revive honesty and spirituality in Christian art...
. He also made four etching
Etching
Etching is the process of using strong acid or mordant to cut into the unprotected parts of a metal surface to create a design in intaglio in the metal...
s.
Biography
Born in LübeckLübeck
The Hanseatic City of Lübeck is the second-largest city in Schleswig-Holstein, in northern Germany, and one of the major ports of Germany. It was for several centuries the "capital" of the Hanseatic League and, because of its Brick Gothic architectural heritage, is listed by UNESCO as a World...
, his ancestors for three generations had been Protestant pastors; his father Christian Adolph Overbeck
Christian Adolph Overbeck
Christian Adolph Overbeck was a German poet, and the Burgomaster of Lübeck.- Family :...
(1755-1821) was doctor of law, poet, mystic pietist and burgomaster
Burgomaster
Burgomaster is the English form of various terms in or derived from Germanic languages for the chief magistrate or chairman of the executive council of a sub-national level of administration...
of Lübeck. Within a stone's throw of the family mansion in the Konigstrasse stood the Gymnasium
Gymnasium (school)
A gymnasium is a type of school providing secondary education in some parts of Europe, comparable to English grammar schools or sixth form colleges and U.S. college preparatory high schools. The word γυμνάσιον was used in Ancient Greece, meaning a locality for both physical and intellectual...
, where the uncle, doctor of theology and a voluminous writer, was the master; there the nephew became a classic scholar and received instruction in art.
The young artist left Lübeck in March 1806, and entered as student the academy of Vienna
Vienna
Vienna is the capital and largest city of the Republic of Austria and one of the nine states of Austria. Vienna is Austria's primary city, with a population of about 1.723 million , and is by far the largest city in Austria, as well as its cultural, economic, and political centre...
, then under the direction of Heinrich Füger
Heinrich Füger
Heinrich Friedrich Füger was a German portrait and historical painter.-Biography:...
. Füger had trained under the French neoclassic
Neoclassicism
Neoclassicism is the name given to Western movements in the decorative and visual arts, literature, theatre, music, and architecture that draw inspiration from the "classical" art and culture of Ancient Greece or Ancient Rome...
painter Jacques-Louis David
Jacques-Louis David
Jacques-Louis David was an influential French painter in the Neoclassical style, considered to be the preeminent painter of the era...
. While Overbeck clearly accrued some of the polished technical aspects of the neoclassic painters, he was alienated by lack of religious spirituality in the themes chosen by his masters. 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 had turned inward to his faith for inspiration. In Overbeck's view, the nature of earlier European art had been corrupted throughout contemporary Europe, starting centuries before the French Revolution, and the process of discarding its Christian orientation was proceeding further now. He sought to express Christian art before the corrupting influence of the late Renaissance, casting aside his contemporary influences, and taking as a guide early Italian Renaissance
Renaissance
The Renaissance was a cultural movement that spanned roughly the 14th to the 17th century, beginning in Italy in the Late Middle Ages and later spreading to the rest of Europe. The term is also used more loosely to refer to the historical era, but since the changes of the Renaissance were not...
painters, up to and including Raphael
Raphael
Raffaello Sanzio da Urbino , better known simply as Raphael, was an Italian painter and architect of the High Renaissance. His work is admired for its clarity of form and ease of composition and for its visual achievement of the Neoplatonic ideal of human grandeur...
. After four years, their differences between his group and others in the academy had grown so irreconcilable, that Overbeck and his followers were expelled.
He left for Rome
Rome
Rome is the capital of Italy and the country's largest and most populated city and comune, with over 2.7 million residents in . The city is located in the central-western portion of the Italian Peninsula, on the Tiber River within the Lazio region of Italy.Rome's history spans two and a half...
, where he arrived in 1810, carrying his half-finished canvas of Christ's Entry into Jerusalem. Rome became for 59 years the centre of his labor. He was joined by a company of like-minded artists, including Peter von Cornelius
Peter von Cornelius
Peter von Cornelius was a German painter.Cornelius was born in Düsseldorf.His father, who was inspector of the Düsseldorf gallery, died in 1799, and the young Cornelius was stimulated to extraordinary exertions...
, Friedrich Wilhelm Schadow
Friedrich Wilhelm Schadow
Friedrich Wilhelm Schadow was a German Romantic painter.-Biography:He was born in Berlin and was the second son of the sculptor Johann Gottfried Schadow....
and Philipp Veit
Philipp Veit
Philipp Veit was a German Romantic painter. To Veit is due the credit of having been the first to revive the almost forgotten technique of fresco painting.- Biography :Veit was born in Berlin, Prussia...
, who jointly housed in the old Franciscan convent of San Isidoro, and became known among friends and enemies by the descriptive epithet of Nazarenes
Nazarene movement
The name Nazarene was adopted by a group of early 19th century German Romantic painters who aimed to revive honesty and spirituality in Christian art...
. Their precept was hard and honest work and holy living; they eschewed the antique as pagan
Paganism
Paganism is a blanket term, typically used to refer to non-Abrahamic, indigenous polytheistic religious traditions....
, the Renaissance
Renaissance
The Renaissance was a cultural movement that spanned roughly the 14th to the 17th century, beginning in Italy in the Late Middle Ages and later spreading to the rest of Europe. The term is also used more loosely to refer to the historical era, but since the changes of the Renaissance were not...
as false, and built up a severe revival on simple nature and on the serious art of Perugino, Pinturicchio
Pinturicchio
Bernardino di Betto, called Pintoricchio or Pinturicchio was an Italian painter of the Renaissance. He acquired his nickname, Pintoricchio , because of his small stature, and he used it to sign some of his works....
, Francesco Francia and the young Raphael
Raphael
Raffaello Sanzio da Urbino , better known simply as Raphael, was an Italian painter and architect of the High Renaissance. His work is admired for its clarity of form and ease of composition and for its visual achievement of the Neoplatonic ideal of human grandeur...
. The characteristics of the style thus educed were nobility of idea, precision and 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 in 1813 joined the Roman Catholic Church
Roman Catholic Church
The Catholic Church, also known as the Roman Catholic Church, is the world's largest Christian church, with over a billion members. Led by the Pope, it defines its mission as spreading the gospel of Jesus Christ, administering the sacraments and exercising charity...
, and thereby he believed that his art received Christian baptism
Baptism
In Christianity, baptism is for the majority the rite of admission , almost invariably with the use of water, into the Christian Church generally and also membership of a particular church tradition...
.
Prussia
Prussia was a German kingdom and historic state originating out of the Duchy of Prussia and the Margraviate of Brandenburg. For centuries, the House of Hohenzollern ruled Prussia, successfully expanding its size by way of an unusually well-organized and effective army. Prussia shaped the history...
n consul
Consul
Consul was the highest elected office of the Roman Republic and an appointive office under the Empire. The title was also used in other city states and also revived in modern states, notably in the First French Republic...
, Jakob Salomon Bartholdy
Jakob Salomon Bartholdy
Jakob Salomon Bartholdy was a Prussian diplomat, born Jakob Salomon in Berlin of Jewish parentage, and educated at the University of Halle...
, had a house on the brow of the Pincian Hill
Pincian Hill
The Pincian Hill is a hill in the northeast quadrant of the historical center of Rome. The hill lies to the north of the Quirinal, overlooking the Campus Martius...
, called Palazzo Zuccari
Palazzetto Zuccari
Palazzetto or Palazzo Zuccari is a 16th century building in Rome, at the crossroads of via Sistina and via Gregoriana, on the piazza Trinità dei Monti. It was built by Federico Zuccari....
or Casa Bartholdy, and he engaged the quartet of Overbeck, Cornelius, Veit and Schadow to fresco a room 7 m square (now in the Alte Nationalgalerie
Alte Nationalgalerie
The Alte Nationalgalerie in Berlin is a gallery showing a collection of Classical, Romantic, Biedermeier, Impressionist and early Modernist artwork, all of which belong to the Staatliche Museen zu Berlin. The museum is situated on Museum Island, a UNESCO-designated World Heritage Site.- Founding...
, Berlin) with episodes from the story of Joseph
Joseph (Hebrew Bible)
Joseph is an important character in the Hebrew bible, where he connects the story of Abraham, Isaac and Jacob in Canaan to the subsequent story of the liberation of the Israelites from slavery in Egypt....
and his Brethren. The subjects which fell to the lot of Overbeck were the Seven Years of Famine and Joseph sold by his Brethren, finished in 1818. In the same year Prince Massimo commissioned Overbeck, Cornelius, Veit and Schnorr to cover the walls and ceilings of his garden pavilion, near St. John Lateran, with frescoes illustrative of Tasso
Torquato Tasso
Torquato Tasso was an Italian poet of the 16th century, best known for his poem La Gerusalemme liberata , in which he depicts a highly imaginative version of the combats between Christians and Muslims at the end of the First Crusade, during the siege of Jerusalem...
, Dante
DANTE
Delivery of Advanced Network Technology to Europe is a not-for-profit organisation that plans, builds and operates the international networks that interconnect the various national research and education networks in Europe and surrounding regions...
and Ariosto. To Overbeck was assigned, in a room 5 m square, the illustration of Tasso's Jerusalem Delivered; and of eleven compositions occupying one entire wall, is the Meeting of Godfrey de Bouillon and Peter the Hermit
Peter the Hermit
Peter the Hermit was a priest of Amiens and a key figure during the First Crusade.-Before 1096:According to Anna Comnena, he had attempted to go on a pilgrimage to Jerusalem before 1096, but was prevented by the Seljuk Turks from reaching his goal and was tortured.Sources differ as to whether he...
. After ten years delay, the overtaxed and enfeebled painter delegated the completion of the frescoes to his friend Joseph von Führich
Joseph von Führich
Joseph von Führich , Austrian painter, was born at Kratzau in Bohemia. Also known as Josef Ritter von Führich....
. The leisure thus gained was devoted to a thoroughly congenial theme, the Vision of St Francis, a wall-painting 6.5 m long, finished in 1830, for the Porziuncola
Porziuncola
Porziuncola, also called Portiuncula or Porzioncula, Porciúncula is a small church located within the Basilica of Santa Maria degli Angeli in the frazione of Santa Maria degli Angeli, situated about from Assisi, Umbria...
in the Basilica of Santa Maria degli Angeli
Basilica of Santa Maria degli Angeli
The Basilica of Santa Maria degli Angeli is a church situated in the plain at the foot of the hill of Assisi, Italy, in the frazione of Santa Maria degli Angeli....
near Assisi
Assisi
- Churches :* The Basilica of San Francesco d'Assisi is a World Heritage Site. The Franciscan monastery, il Sacro Convento, and the lower and upper church of St Francis were begun immediately after his canonization in 1228, and completed in 1253...
.
He died in Rome in 1869. He was interred in the church of San Bernardo alle Terme
San Bernardo alle Terme
San Bernardo alle Terme is a basilica church in Rome, Italy.The church was built in 1598 and was initially given to a French Cistercian group, the Feuillants, through the intercession of Caterina Sforza di Santafiora. Later, after Feuillants disgregation during the French Revolution, the edifice...
.
Works
- Christ's Entry into Jerusalem (1824), in the Marienkirche.(destroyed through Allied bombing, Palm Sunday 1942Bombing of Lübeck in World War IIthumb|Joseph Krautwald's The MotherDuring World War II, the city of Lübeck was the first German city to be attacked in substantial numbers by the Royal Air Force. The attack on the night of 28 March 1942 created a firestorm that caused severe damage to the historic centre, the bombs destroying...
). - Christ's Agony in the Garden (1835), in the great hospital, HamburgHamburg-History:The first historic name for the city was, according to Claudius Ptolemy's reports, Treva.But the city takes its modern name, Hamburg, from the first permanent building on the site, a castle whose construction was ordered by the Emperor Charlemagne in AD 808...
. - Lo Sposalizio (1836), Muzeum Narodowe, PoznańPoznanPoznań is a city on the Warta river in west-central Poland, with a population of 556,022 in June 2009. It is among the oldest cities in Poland, and was one of the most important centres in the early Polish state, whose first rulers were buried at Poznań's cathedral. It is sometimes claimed to be...
, Poland. - The Triumph of Religion in the Arts (1840), in the Städel Institute, Frankfurt.
- Pietà (1846), in the Marienkirche, Lübeck.
- The Incredulity of St. Thomas (1851), first in the possession of Beresford Hope, London, now in the Schäfer collection, Schweinfurt, Germany.
- The Assumption of the Madonna (1855), in Cologne CathedralCologne CathedralCologne Cathedral is a Roman Catholic church in Cologne, Germany. It is the seat of the Archbishop of Cologne and the administration of the Archdiocese of Cologne. It is renowned monument of German Catholicism and Gothic architecture and is a World Heritage Site...
. - Christ Delivered from the Jews (1858), temperaTemperaTempera, also known as egg tempera, is a permanent fast-drying painting medium consisting of colored pigment mixed with a water-soluble binder medium . Tempera also refers to the paintings done in this medium. Tempera paintings are very long lasting, and examples from the 1st centuries AD still exist...
, originally on a ceiling in the Quirinal PalaceQuirinal PalaceThe Quirinal Palace is a historical building in Rome, Italy, the current official residence of the President of the Italian Republic. It is located on the Quirinal Hill, the tallest of the seven hills of Rome...
. It is a commission from Pius IXPope Pius IXBlessed Pope Pius IX , born Giovanni Maria Mastai-Ferretti, was the longest-reigning elected Pope in the history of the Catholic Church, serving from 16 June 1846 until his death, a period of nearly 32 years. During his pontificate, he convened the First Vatican Council in 1869, which decreed papal...
, and a direct attack on the Italian temporal government, therefore later covered by a canvas adorned with Cupids, and now hanging in front of the Aula delle Benedizione in the VaticanVatican CityVatican City , or Vatican City State, in Italian officially Stato della Città del Vaticano , which translates literally as State of the City of the Vatican, is a landlocked sovereign city-state whose territory consists of a walled enclave within the city of Rome, Italy. It has an area of...
. - Baptism 1862-64, Neue Pinakothek, Munich
- Drawings for the frescoes for the Cathedral of St. Peter and St. Paul in ĐakovoCathedral of St. Peter and St. Paul in ĐakovoThe Cathedral of St. Peter and St. Paul , the co-cathedral of the Roman Catholic Archdiocese of Đakovo-Osijek, is a Roman Catholic cathedral in Đakovo, Croatia. It is sometimes referred only as the Cathedral of St. Peter....
(1867-1869).
Family
His nephew Johannes OverbeckJohannes Overbeck
Johannes Adolph Overbeck was a German archaeologist and art historian.-Biography:Overbeck was born in Antwerp. He was son-in-law to zoologist Georg August Goldfuss , and was father-in-law to anthropologist Emil Ludwig Schmidt . His uncle was famed painter Friedrich Overbeck .In 1848 Overbeck...
, a professor of archaeology at the University of Leipzig
University of Leipzig
The University of Leipzig , located in Leipzig in the Free State of Saxony, Germany, is one of the oldest universities in the world and the second-oldest university in Germany...
, was noted for his work in art history
Art history
Art history has historically been understood as the academic study of objects of art in their historical development and stylistic contexts, i.e. genre, design, format, and style...
.
Followers of Overbeck
In 1843 the Church of St. John the Baptist, Penymynydd, North Wales was built by the Glynne Family of Hawarden, Flintshire. The first vicar Rev. John Ellis Troughton spent the first 20 years of the life of the church painting the interior with Overbeck murals, including the Palm Sunday one, of which the original was destroyed in an Allied Bombing raid in 1942, overnight into Palm Sunday.
External links
- Johann Friedrich Overbeck in the "History of Art"
- Italy and Germany Reproduction
- Overbeck by J. Beavington Atkinson, 1882, (London: Sampson Low, Marston), 114 pages