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as a “veritable teacher of faith,” and by the end of his life, he had The new lyricism, however, was not only a Viennese affair. In Düsseldorf,
acquired a reputation as “the theologian with the pencil.” In 1841, too, Schadow’s latest pupils intoned a more sentimental, more poetic
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his innovative rendition of Mary’s Walk Across the Mountains delivered variation of the Nazarene idiom. As fate had it, religious fresco would
a picture-perfect example of this new Nazarenism (see Cat. 4). be at its core and weld together yet another Nazarene collective:
Ernst Deger (1809–1885), Franz Ittenbach (1818–1879), and the brothers
Already the subject matter is a remarkable choice. In an age when Andreas (1811–1890) and Carl Müller (1818–1893). Close to their master,
Marian piety had once again become a center of Catholic spirituality, the four continued on the path of Schadow’s “naturalist idealism.”
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an episode from the life of the Virgin seemed an obvious choice. And they left no doubt about their commitment to the Nazarene cause.
But Führich sidelined any of the popular and theologically potent “I hope with confidence,” Andreas Müller assured his master and
scenes such as the Annunciation, when the Archangel Gabriel appears to fatherly friend, “that our highest wish, to see a true Christian School of
Mary revealing the Incarnation (Luke 1:26–38), or the Visitation, which Painter arise in Düsseldorf, shall come about.” To which he added: “But
shows a pregnant Mary with her cousin Elizabeth who, too, is carrying we all have to put all our efforts into it, because only in the most
a baby, the future John the Baptist (Luke 1:39–56). Führich avoided any intimate union with united forces can we have an effect.” Yet when the
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of these well-known scenes in favor of a moment in between. “And question arose how that “true Christian School” should look like, they
Mary rising up in those days, went into the hill country with haste into parted company with their beloved mentor. Like the Pre-Raphaelite
a city of Juda” (Luke 1:39; Douay-Rheims). Only mentioned by Luke, the Brotherhood, they glanced not at the High Renaissance but the Italian
passage had not caught the eye of any previous painter. Unburdened primitives, shared the period’s fascination with Byzantine mosaics and
by precedents or pictorial conventions, the Nazarene could spread the discovered the emotional depth of the kind of late medieval German art
wings of his imagination and, free to pursue his predilections, invent so potently present in Stefan Lochner’s Cologne altarpiece and his
an iconography all his own. Mary no longer finds herself in the dessert images of the Madonna (Fig. 22).
heat of the Holy Land, but the softly shaded Vienna Woods. And she
has acquired unexpected divine company, four angels, who, a large This stylistic reorientation went hand in hand, as it did for a Führich
hymnal in hand, are now leading the way, singing as they go along as or Steinle, with a push toward tenderness and sentimental appeal. The
another three angels scatter the Virgin’s stony path with roses. Trailing single figure lent itself most compellingly to such treatment, and the
behind, Joseph has just bent down to collect one of the flowers, which, Virgin in iconic stillness would become one of their signature motifs
as a familiar Marian symbol, evokes the Rosary, the Catholics’ most (see Cat. 6). “Since Raphael’s time, the ideal of the Madonna has not
ancient, most sacred prayer to the Blessed Virgin. The dominance been enriched by so many immortal types,” Ittenbach’s first biographer,
of pastel color, charming scenery and ensemble of endearing angels Heinrich Finke, rhapsodized in 1898, and enthusiastically bestowed
catapult the scene from its Biblical origins into the land of fairy tales upon the Düsseldorf master the epithet “The Painter of Madonnas.”
and Christian legend. The motif of the divine choir adds the final He was not alone in his enthusiasm. Already forty years earlier, Anton
touch to the picture’s light-hearted loquaciousness, a poetic reference Springer (1825–1891), the first full professor of modern art history
to celestial music that, in turn, sets the tone for the composition’s in German academia, had highlighted the inner harmony, genuine
own musicality. The contrast to Overbeck’s introspective Banishment spirituality and Romantic inwardness of Ittenbach’s art. His strengths
of Hagar of the same year could not be more pronounced (see Cat. 8). were “calm and lyrically resonant situations,” Springer observed in
Both artists had their finger on the pulse of the time, but for very 1859, striking for their “simple clarity of composition, mild yet dignified
different reasons and by very different means. Acquired for Austria’s conception of form, and intimate expression of the soul,” whose
Imperial Painting Gallery in 1868, Mary’s Walk Across the Mountains absorbing effect was rounded out by the felicitous combination of “pure
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had become undisputedly his most famous painting by the 1920s. 62 drawing and harmonic coloration.” Fascinated by naturalistic detail
and quintessentially Northern motifs like seen in The Madonna
in the Rose Bower, Ittenbach married the ideal form of Raphael
and his teacher Perugino to an almost Netherlandish naturalism.

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