Johann Friedrich Overbeck

Johann Friedrich Overbeck (° Lübeck, July 3rd, 1789 - † Rome, November 12th, 1869), is a German painter, member of the Mouvement nazaréen.

Biography

It is resulting from a family of Lübeck where its ancestors, during three generations, were Protestant pastors. His/her father, Christian Adolph Overbeck was lawyer, poet, senator-mayor of this city, his mother Eleonora Maria Jauch is downward of the family and his/her large father, Georg Christian Overbeck, were lawyer.

He follows a traditional schooling and a formation of initiation to art in an establishment located close to the family manor, in Konigstraße, where his/her uncle, Doctor of Divinity and prolific author, sign.

Stay with Vienna

In March 1806, it leaves to Vienna where, with the Academy of the Art schools of this city, he is the pupil of Heinrich Füger, famous painter of neo-classic style, near to the school of Jacques-Louis David.

The excessive academism of its Master pushes it to seek new forms of expression as attests it the terms of a letter addressed to a friend; he writes to him to be among vulgar people, to deplore the absence of very thought noble of the academy, to lose any confidence in humanity and, consequently, to have to fold up itself towards his own interiority.

Although young person at that time, this thought and these convictions will be the discussion thread of his pictorial creation. Convinced that Vienna and all Europe had corrupted the original purity of the Christian art, it thus decides to take as model primitive Italian, predecessors of Raphaël, involuntarily giving credit to the same theories defended by the preraphaelists English.

In opposition to the Academy, Johann Friedrich Overbeck and its friends painters and pupils of this school, Franz Pforr, Ludwig Vogel, Joseph Wintergest and Johann Konrad Hottinger found the Brotherhood of Luc saint in 1809; she will be dissolved in 1818.

After four years with the academy, its ideas and the differences are so irreconcilable that Johann Friedrich Overbeck and its disciples are expelled of this school.

Authentic art, writes it, I vainly sought it in Vienna:
Oh! I was filled by it; my whole imagination was had by Madonna and Christs, but nowhere I could not find the answer

The group leaves this city, carrying a table not finished, the entry of Christ in Jerusalem , and leaves for Rome.

Stay in Rome

The painter settles in Rome in 1810 in the old unused convent franciscain of San Isidoro where the Brotherhood of Luc saint lives in community; he will remain in this city during 59 years, works there actively in company of other painters, Peter von Cornelius, Friedrich Wilhelm Schadow and Philipp Veit, which joined it, founders with him movement nazaréen.

Their precepts are a life of ascetic, a hard and honest work: they avoid pagan antiquity because, the Renaissance because distorts and promote the redécouverte Pérugin, Pinturicchio, Francesco Francia and young Raphaël. From these principles the characteristics rise from a style which aims to the representation of a noble and transcendent idea, through precise contours, scholastics compositions, with the moderate use of clearly-obscure and of the color with an only aim of underlining the topic of the reason. Later, Barthold Georg Niebuhr, Karl Wilhelm Friedrich Schlegel will also join the movement nazaréen.

Into 1813, Overbeck is converted with the Catholicisme and, practically at the same time, him and its movement acquires a notoriety; they are called Roman nazaréens, German artists, romantic painters of the Church, religious and patriotic painters German.

Success

The consul of Prussia, Jakob Solomon Bartholdy, uncle of the type-setter Felix Mendelssohn Bartholdy lives a residence located on one of the hills of Rome, Pincio and entrusts the decoration (a fresco on the topic of Joseph and its brothers) of one of the parts to Johann Friedrich Overbeck, Peter von Cornelius, Philipp Veit and Friedrich Wilhelm Schadow; the execution of 2 subjects, Seven years of famine and Joseph sold by his brothers , falls on Overbeck.

The work, finished in 1818 is so favorably accommodated by Italian that, the same year, prince Francesco Massimo orders the decoration of the walls and ceilings of his hunting lodge, located close to Saint-Jean-of-Lateran, in Johann Friedrich Overbeck, Philipp Veit, Julius Schnorr von Carolsfeld and Joseph von Führich; these frescos illustrate topics inspired of works of Dante, the Cup and Arioste. In Overbeck the illustration of the poem of the Cup, Jerusalem delivered is assigned and eleven remarkable compositions, occupying a whole wall, reporting the meeting between Godefroy de Bouillon and Pierre the Hermit. The execution of the frescos will take ten years and the painter, overworked and weakened, will delegate completion of it to his friend Joseph von Führich. Johann Friedrich Overbeck entirely devotes time thus gained to the realization of another fresco, finished in 1830, the vision of Saint-François d' Assise for the Sanctuary of Portioncule, included in the Basilique Holy-Marie-of-Angels of Sitted.

Overbeck and its friends gave the responsability themselves to recover the neglected art of monumental painting and the fresco and knew to redécouvrir the old technique of the latter; their success will bring his rebirth through Europe.

Johann Friedrich Overbeck dies on November 12th, 1869 and is buried in the church San Bernardo ale Terme of Rome.

Selection of works

Portrait of Franz Pforr (1810), Alte Nationalgalerie, Berlin
Christ ressuscite the girl of Jaïre (1815), Staatliche Museen, Berlin * Self-portrait with its family (1820), Lübeck
the entry of Christ in Jerusalem (1824), holy Church Marie de Lübeck (work destroyed during the bombardment of the city by the Royal Air Force, in the night of March 28th, 1942)
Italy and Germany (1828), Neue Pinakothek, Munich
the miracle of the pinks of Saint François d' Assise (1829), museum of the Art schools, Leipzig * vision of Saint-François d' Assise (1830), fresco of the wall external of the Sanctuary of Portioncule, in the Basilica Holy-Marie-of-Angels of Sitted
the passion of Christ to the Mount of Olives (1835), Large hospital of Hamburg
" Lo Sposalizio (1836), Muzeum Narodowe, Poznań
the triumph of the religion in arts (1840), Frankfurt
Pietà (1846), holy Church Marie, Lübeck
the incredulity of saint Thomas (1851), initially property of the collector Beresford Hope in London, today with, Schweinfurt
the assumption of the Virgin (1855), Cathedral of Cologne
Christ delivered to the sanhédrin (1858), Moderated, in the beginning, orders of the pope Pie IX for a ceiling of the Quirinal; following the attacks of the Italian government, work is replaced by a decoration neo-classic and transferred in the room from the blessings from the the Vatican
the baptism (1862-1864), Neue Pinakothek, Munich
the Visitation (1870), Sanctuaire of the Madonna della Stella, Montefalco

References

Rudolf Bachleitner : Die Nazarener , Wilhelm Heyne Verlag, München 1976. ISBN 3-453-41182-X

Gallery

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