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staged in the artificially darkened halls of his studio the products of Nothing demonstrates Overbeck’s political acumen and missionary
a disembodied outline-art, an art deprived of color and thus life. zeal more impressively than his canvas The Triumph of Religion in the
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These arguments leave no doubt that it was in the end not a matter of Arts (Fig. 19). Commissioned for the Städel in 1829 the composition
sheer quality but a question of ideology that made Overbeck’s oeuvre reworked Raphael’s Vatican fresco of the Disputa del sacramento,
so divisive, an oeuvre in which aesthetics were synonymous with which, in turn, had taken flight from a then popular motif, the so-
politics, and politics with faith. Like Hercules at the crossroads, the called sacra conversazione. This picture type, which gathered figures
viewer must decide, be for or against. Neutrality was not an option. from across time in a unified space, appealed to Overbeck not least
for its freedom from temporal unity, and he proceeded to use this
Was Overbeck merely, one might wonder, yet another example freedom to marshal roughly 100 artists from late antiquity to the High
of the sociable renegade who, having battled an ossified academy Renaissance, adding a few contemporary witnesses, himself among
in his youth, diminished to a lonely dogmatist as time went on? them, to the mix. Raphael had already taken the critical step in this
Hardly, as a fresh look at his case reveals. Overbeck’s performative direction, when he replaced the assembly of Saints with a more mottled
self-representation rather betrays the machinations of a shrewd, congregation who, while unanimously examples of exceptional faith,
and quintessentially modern, media politician, who left little in were no longer all canonized by the Roman Catholic church for their
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his life to coincidence. In contrast to others, he was not easily “heroic virtue” as saints. Indeed, the Renaissance master had even
swayed by prestige or the promise of handsome enumeration. His added the odd poet, artist and philosopher to the impressive array
decisions were guided by an artistic masterplan of what it meant of theologians debating the doctrine of the transubstantiation, of
to be a religious, indeed, a modern religious painter. Only this Christ’s presence in the Eucharist. This now gave Overbeck license
broader missionary vision of art, of his art, explains the remarkable to forge his own mystical union of painters, sculptors, architects and
frequency with which Overbeck declined prominent commissions patrons, whose life and art had been dedicated to glorify Religion.
or the chairmanship of a major academy. When he did accept an
assignment, especially a public one, he always did so with a keen Less a debate than a sermon, The Triumph of Religion in the Arts was all
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eye on an advancement of his influence over the public discourse. about instruction. Modern art must follow this model of a prescriptive
Overbeck was, to use modern jargon, a media-savvy influencer. past, the canvas declared with monumental might, and do so in both
style and pious resolve. To secure the success of the canvas’s pedagogic
and ideological labor, the painter programmatically published a lengthy
explanation of its iconography, which, quickly translated into English,
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also named all of the artists featured. This decision reflected
Overbeck’s astute awareness how much the knowledge of art’s symbolic
language had waned in the modern age. Together, the combination of
pictorial sermon and verbal explication continued what Overbeck had
long practiced in his studio, not least in front of the Triumph itself. The
canvas had occupied a place of pride in his Roman atelier for more than
a decade, and already in those years exerted a notable, if unrecognized
power. Its most immediate reflection can be found in Paul Delaroche’s
murals for the semi-circular lecture theatre of the École des Beaux-
Arts in Paris, completed in 1841 and soon, as the British Art Journal
noted in 1856, “almost as well known in England as in France, for it is
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one of the lions of Paris, which no Englishman ever fails to visit.
There is one more aspect of Overbeck’s secular-sacred conversation
that is noteworthy.

Fig. 19

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