Page 21 - Gallery 19C Nazarenes Catalogues

From Rebels to Princes of Painters The two works he painted for the Nazarenes’ most important early
champion, the crown prince of Bavaria and later king Ludwig I,
When Schnorr published his lengthy commentary on the recently certainly justify Humboldt’s judgment (Figs. 12 and 13). Submitted in
completed wall decorations in 1828, the Lukasbund had long since 1819 to the first major exhibition of German Romantic art in Rome,
dispersed. In 1819 Peter Cornelius and Wilhelm Schadow both left for the paintings showcased his talent for portraiture, the medium of oil
Germany, and in less than ten years they both occupied prestigious and an exquisite, dolce tonality. Fresco had never been his forte, nor
and influential positions – Cornelius as the director of the Munich had dramatic multifigured compositions. Schadow was most drawn
academy, Schadow as his competitor in Düsseldorf. The rise to cultural to single figures or static groups, viewed in closeup and depicted
hegemony continued when another of the former Lukasbrüder, Philipp in repose, which played to his gift as a portraitist. The Holy Family
Veit, was appointed as the head of the newly founded Städel’sche Beneath a Portico is a brilliant case in point. Gracefully, the picture
Kunstsammlung in Frankfurt am Main, a position that gave him melts a diverse range of strategies—a rigorous idealization of form,
oversight not only over the foundation’s rich art collection but also the pronounced emulation of Renaissance style and judicious study of
attached art school. The list could go on, and the effect was momentous. the life model—into the harmonious portrait of a young mother with
In the studios and cafés in Rome, the Lukasbrüder had already drawn her divine child. Gentle emotion, artistic opulence and symbolic
the attention of an international community of expatriates; now the wealth are skillfully united in a devotional image that is sensual and
institutional power of their academic positions enabled them to extend yet chaste. The naturalistic idealism thus achieved would remain
their reach dramatically, and not just in Germany. Assisted by an Schadow’s trademark. But it had its price. No sooner had the ambitious Fig. 11
exploding print culture, they now exported their designs to the most Lukasbruder established his artistic concept that he found himself
far-flung corners of the world, while an international crowd of students caught in the middle between “two parties in the art world: idealists
cultivated the Nazarene legacy in a cornucopia of national variations. and materialists.” Schadow sided with neither, not with an ultra- Fig. 12
28
Thus, before Emmanuel Leutze’ Washington could cross the Delaware, Nazarene idealism, not with the materialist realism practiced in
he had to cross the Rhine, where he had been painted, inspired by the France or Belgium. Instead, he insisted on a balance between idea,
failed Revolution of 1848, in the of ambiance of Schadow’s School. ideal form and nature study. His comprehensive practice of drawing
In short, the Romantic rebels had become princes of painters. after draperies and the life model testifies to the latter, and countless
studies of beautifully executed body parts have survived, from faces
As so often the case, the moment of success is also the moment of
strife. Early on Lukasbund’s powerful rhetoric of collective unity to feet, which served not only as preparation for specific works but
and their artistic practice had revealed dramatically different artistic teaching material as well. He also continued to observe the French
temperaments. One has only to throw a quick glance at the Casa practice of preparatory oil studies to work out the distribution of colors
Bartholdy to see just that. Fueled by institutional rivalry and economic and range of hues (see Cat. 12). This practice went hand in hand with
competition, these differences now intensified, with Munich and an insistence on portrait studies in oil, which are often so expressive
Düsseldorf as particularly fierce combatants. Already in Rome, and individual that they become artworks in their own right (see Cat.
Overbeck, Pforr, and Cornelius had embodied the former camp, an 11). Sometimes all it took to transform such an academic study into
idealistic approach which, pursuing a purified archaism, harbored a a devotional picture was a halo (Fig. 14). Once Schadow added the
noteworthy animosity towards corporality. Schadow, on the other role of a remarkably effective and beloved teacher to his professional
hand, preferred a more naturalistic, more sensual style which reflected repertoire, he elevated his personal preference to school doctrine.
his Berlin heritage, the realism of his father, an admired Neoclassicist And thus, history painting was reborn from the spirit of portraiture.
sculptor, and the lush French Neoclassicism he had encountered in his
hometown’s Royal collections (Fig. 11). Of all the German painters in
Rome, as Caroline von Humboldt declared with determination in 1810,
Schadow possessed “the deepest and most beautiful sense of color.” 27
Fig. 14
Fig. 13

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