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Another point to be remarked is that the frescoes in the Casa Bartholdi show that the four painters--Overbeck, Cornelius, Veit, and Schadow--worked here at the outset of their career in remarkable unison. In the course of years they diverged widely, but as yet the school collectively dominates over the artist individually. The Brethren had formed themselves equally on the same originals, and had scarcely found time to take their several departures from nature. Indeed, the actual presence of nature comes almost as a surprise in these compositions. Overbeck's figures are manifestly more or less studied from the life, only, according to his habitual practice, he has taken pains to eliminate from his models any individual accidents which marred the generic form, softening down angularity and ruggedness into pervading grace and beauty. Here and there are traces of affectation, together with a feebleness incident to the painter's weak physique which stands in utmost contrast with the force of Cornelius. Overbeck mostly shunned action and dramatic intensity, and here the figures in their movements depart but slightly from the equilibrium of repose. As a religious artist, the New Testament was more within his sphere than the Old. Thus the outrage committed against Joseph by his brethren is toned down into a calm, orderly transaction; placidity reigns throughout; all is brought into keeping with the painter's spirit of gentleness.

The Casa Bartholdi frescoes, when finished, produced a most favourable impression in Rome; the cause of the Germans was greatly strengthened, and the opposite party felt the defeat. The Italians, too, were taken by surprise to find themselves beaten by foreigners on their own ground. A natural consequence of the success was further commissions, and the fortune no less than the fame of the revivalists was made. Singularly enough the modern Romans came forward as the next patrons. Niebuhr, writing from Rome in 1817, says: "It is a significant fact that some foreigners, even Italians, are beginning to pay attention to the works of our friends." It is well known that the Romans had been addicted for centuries to mural painting in palaces, villas and garden-houses: Raphael was employed to decorate the Farnesina; Guido and Annibale Carracci painted the ceilings of the Farnese and of the Rospigliosi Palaces. Emulating these illustrious examples, 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, Dante, and Ariosto. Not only the themes, but the local surroundings were inspiring. The Villa Massimo is a site only possible in Rome. When the artists in the morning came to work, before their view opened a panorama embracing the Claudian Aqueduct, St. John Lateran, the Church of Sta. Croce in Gerusalemme, the old Walls of Rome, with cypresses and stone pines around, and the Alban Hills beyond. The Pavilion assigned to the painters stands in the Villa garden, with the accustomed growth and fragrance of orange-trees, magnolias, azaleas, roses, and violets. Overbeck entered on the work with poetic ardour.

I must confess that I have always been disappointed with this Tasso Room. One reason is that the carrying out of the original designs was delegated to an inferior brush. Overbeck was not in strong health; he worked slowly, and when other commissions came in, some more to his liking, such as that for the church picture at Assisi, he felt overburdened, and wished to be released from a task that had grown wearisome. The work, began about 1817, had dragged on for ten years, till at last Overbeck made a deliberate call on good and friendly Joseph F?hrich, and requested that he would complete the unfinished frescoes. The proposal, naturally felt as an honour, was gratefully acceded to. After this distance of time it becomes difficult to determine how far this worthy substitute must be held responsible for much that is to be regretted on these walls. For some of the compositions the master had made nothing more than sketches or indications, and at least three must be laid to the charge of the scholar. F?hrich was for Overbeck what Giulio Romano had been for Raphael, and the Tasso Room suffered the same degradation as the latest stanza in the Vatican.

The Tasso Room may be taken as a measure of Overbeck's capacity. This "cyclus," or series, shows the painter's power of sustained thought and faculty of invention. Much, doubtless, is compilation, yet something remains of originality. The best passages are those not borrowed from old pictures, but taken from life, which makes the regret all the greater that here and in the sequel nature was not trusted more implicitly. On the whole, these compositions leave the impression that Overbeck had not mental force or physical stamina sufficient for the task. It is true that the presence of a lyrical spirit is felt; but scenes of Romance need more fire and passion; the deeds of Chivalry were not enacted in a cloister. Perhaps self-knowledge wisely counselled Overbeck to quit the regions of creative imagination. With greater peace of mind he trod in the future, the safer paths of Christian Art, wherein precedent and authority served as his guide and support.

FOOTNOTES:

ROME--GERMANY.

The life of Overbeck apportioned itself into successive periods of five, ten, or more years, corresponding to the important works from time to time in hand. The painter threw his whole mind into whatever he undertook, and so his pictures in their conception, and even in their execution, reflect the thought and the state of consciousness which for the while held supreme sway. The preceding chapters treat of two periods; the one describes the early times in L?beck and Vienna, the other presents a sketch of the first decade in Rome. The foundations have been laid; the main principles for the guidance of a true life and for the building up of a soul-moving art have been firmly fixed; and now it remains to be seen how far and in what way the lofty aim was reached.

Overbeck, as soon as his prospects in life became somewhat assured, married. Little is recorded of the wife: the earliest mention I have met with is in 1818, when the artists in Rome gave a grand f?te in honour of the Crown Prince of Bavaria. Overbeck and Cornelius furnished designs for pictorial decorations and transparencies: the guests wore mediaeval costumes, and made themselves otherwise attractive; and we learn on the authority of Madame Bunsen that among the brilliant assembly "the most admired of the evening was Overbeck's future wife, a lady beautiful, engaging, and influential, from Vienna." The marriage, which was not long delayed, proved on the whole happy, though the wife's delicate health gave constant cause for anxiety, and her other demands on an indulgent husband are said to have provoked the displeasure of Cornelius and other friends. Two children were the fruits of the union: a girl, who died young, and a boy, who lived only long enough to give singular promise.

Overbeck received repeated solicitations to return to Germany: he was asked in 1821 by Cornelius to take the directorship of the D?sseldorf Academy, and four years later he writes in reply to the further persuasions of Wintergerst and Mosler. He urges his incapacity for the duties: he had learnt painting, he says, in a way difficult to impart to others; moreover, sculpture and architecture he did not understand at all, and as for the business matters he was without faculty. Further difficulties were the health of his wife and the welfare of his son: "every information," he continues, "I receive from my native country tells me of spiritual fermentations: the sanctuary, insufficiently protected by the law, suffers under attacks, and a proud worldly spirit raises its head and proclaims its wisdom. Can parents be blind to the risks to which they expose their child, till now reared in the most delightful simplicity of belief? Dearest friends, can you give us the assurance that we shall be able to educate our son in the simple Catholic faith which we have learnt to recognise as the most vital and consoling." Overbeck, it need hardly be added, shrank from the dangers and declined the duties.

But, at length, free from pressing and onerous commissions, he lent a more willing ear to invitations from Germany. Cornelius in 1830 had come to Rome from Munich, the better to complete certain cartoons; with him were a daughter, also his wife, who had under charge Fr?ulein Emilie Linder, a young lady of Basle, of some means and given to pictorial pursuits. Overbeck, on the completion of his wall-painting at Assisi, rejoined the brilliant art circle of the Roman capital, and from this time dates the memorable friendship between the lady, then a Protestant, and the great Catholic painter. After a winter pleasantly passed among congenial spirits, the whole party in the early summer of 1831 set out from Rome and reached Florence. Emilie Linder returned for a time to Basle, while Overbeck, under the care of Cornelius, by way of the Tyrol reached Munich. On the news of their approach in July, the local artists, young and old, assembled at the gates, outposts had been stationed along the road, and the townfolks gathered by thousands in the streets: from afar the cheering was heard, and then group after group raised the cry, "Overbeck!" "Cornelius!" The entry soon grew into a triumphal march, and, protests notwithstanding, the horses were unyoked, and a company of lusty youths drew the carriage to the dwelling of Cornelius.

Twenty years had elapsed since Overbeck, an unknown youth, had quitted his native land; he now returned with a world-wide reputation. Cornelius, once the sharer of his trials, became the equal recipient of the triumphs; he had just completed the grand series of frescoes for the Glyptothek, and with him were brought the cartoons elaborated in Rome for the wall-paintings in the new Ludwig Kirche. Overbeck, as the guest of his old friend, passed happy weeks in Munich. The two painters conferred closely together in the interests of Christian Art, and aided each other in the arduous works soon to be carried out. The artists of Bavaria signalised the visit of the apostle of Christian Painting by a jubilee; they gave in honour of the illustrious stranger one of those joyous and scenic f?tes for which Munich is famed. The locality chosen was the Starnberger See, a lovely region of hill and lake lying in the Bavarian highlands, bordering on the Ammergau, peopled by peasants with sacred traditions since better known through "The Passion Play." Overbeck writes gratefully of enjoyment and instruction received through kind friends among the beauties of nature and of art.

The Roman recluse in his journey northwards had widely extended his knowledge of nature. On leaving the Apennines he encountered the Alps, and exchanged beauty for grandeur. His figures were often accompanied by landscapes; but mountains exceeding in altitude five or six thousand feet appalled his imagination; masses of such magnitude could not enter the smaller sphere of his consciousness; hence his northern peregrinations brought into his compositions no Alpine presences; indeed, his habitual serenity and simplicity were disturbed by dramatic stir or storm of the elements, and though his sympathies warmed under novel experiences, his art failed to take a new departure.

I have often when in Munich regretted that Overbeck had no share in the Bavarian manifestations of Christian Art. But that he, the head of the religious revival, is left out was simply his own fault. Cornelius, in 1821, when as director reorganising the Academy, wrote to his friend, asking assistance; King Ludwig also urged Overbeck to come. But the timorous artist as usual hesitated; he gave at first assent, conditional however on a delay of three years to complete works in hand; then he pleaded the impossibility of taking any step whatsoever without the sense of religious duty. The King naturally grew weary, and interpreted the equivocal dealing as a denial. Cornelius again in 1833, when the new Basilica of St. Boniface needed decoration, once more proposed that his fellow-labourer in Rome should settle in Munich, but with no avail; the King evidently had little cordiality for the artist, and so employed others on the plea, not wholly tenable, that Overbeck was better in oil than in fresco. Thus the large acreage of wall surfaces dedicated to Christian Art in the churches of Munich and the Cathedral of Spires fell into the hands of Cornelius, Hess, and Schraudolph. It is impossible not to regret that this grand sphere was thus closed to the artist who of all others had most of beauty to reveal. Yet the sensitive painter might have encountered much to disturb his peace of mind. King Ludwig could not assuredly be quite the patron for a spiritual and esoteric artist, and, moreover, there was something too wholesale in the Munich way of going on for a man of limited strength. Overbeck, as I can testify, was about the last person to climb a giddy ladder or to endure a long day's drudgery before an acreage of wall fifty feet above the ground. He wisely did not overstep his bounds; he had not the wing of an eagle, and preferred to keep as a dove, near to the nest.

Munich is identified with a friendship between Overbeck and a lady, which ranks among the most memorable of Platonic attachments. Fr?ulein Emilie Linder we have already encountered in Rome, where an abiding friendship was rooted, and the devoted lady, on separation, soon found occasion to open a correspondence which was prolonged over a period of thirty years. Overbeck was a persistent letter-writer; he wasted no time on society, and so gained leisure to write epistles and publish essays. And yet it cannot be said that, had he not been an artist, he would have shone as the brightest of authors. On the contrary, as with the majority of painters, he never acquired an adroitness of pen commensurate with his mastery in the use of his pencil; and it is certain that if his pictures had been without adorers, his prose would have remained without readers. The great painter was destitute of literary style; his sentences are cumbrous and confused; his pages grow wearisome by wordy repetition. Doubtless his thoughts are pure and elevated, but, lacking originality, they run into platitudes, and barely escape commonplace. The prolonged correspondence with Emilie Linder contracts the flavour peculiar to polemics. Overbeck had grown into a "fanatic Catholic"; he was ever casting out nets to catch converts; his tactics were enticing; his own example proved persuasive. Moreover, about his mind and method was something effusive, which won on the hearts of emotional women. At all events, these letters brought over to the Roman Catholic Church the lady and others. And so it naturally came to pass that the bonds of union were drawn very close when the revered apostle and the devout disciple reposed within the same sheepfold. These letters have a further significance; they declare what indeed is otherwise well established, that the Catholic faith served as the prime moving power in the life and the art of Overbeck.

Overbeck left the hospitable roof of Cornelius in Munich at the end of August, 1831, and reached Heidelberg, there to meet with an enthusiastic reception from friends and admirers; there also, after a separation of five-and-twenty years, he saw once more, and for the last time, his elder brother from L?beck. Close to Heidelberg, overhanging the banks of the Necker, is Stift Neuburg, formerly a monastic establishment, but then the picturesque residence of a family in warmest bonds of friendship with the art brethren. At this lovely spot, I am told by the present owner, "Overbeck stayed several days, and a seat in the garden is still called after him 'Overbeck's Pl?tzchen.'" On this rustic bench the painter was wont to sit meditatively amid scenery of surpassing beauty; the quietude of nature and the converse of kindred minds were to his heart's content. Within the old mansion, on the walls and in portfolios, are the choicest examples of the artist's early and middle periods; thus Stift Neuburg in its house and grounds remains sacred to the painter's memory.

Overbeck, in September, 1833, witnessed an event memorable in the history of art: he was present at the opening of Raphael's tomb in the Pantheon, and a few days after he wrote to his friend Veit at Frankfort a circumstantial account, as some relief to his overwhelming emotions. The letter is here of interest as evidence of Overbeck's unshaken allegiance to the great master; if called by others a pre-Raphaelite, he remained at heart faithful to the painter from whom indeed he borrowed largely. Unlike certain of our English artists and critics, he never decried Raphael. He writes: "Know, then, I was present at the opening of Raphael's grave, and have looked upon the true and incomparable master. What a shudder came over me when the remains of the honoured painter were laid open, thou canst better conceive than I can describe. May this deep experience not be without good results for us: may the remembrance of the honoured one make us more worthy inheritors of his spirit!"

These "Gospels" have taken a permanent place in the world's Christian Art. If not wholly worthy of so large and grand a theme, they yet scarcely suffer from comparison with like efforts by other artists. They have hardly less of unction and holiness than Fra Angelico's designs, while undoubtedly they display profounder science and art. That they have nothing in common with the Bible of Gustave Dor? is much to their praise; on the other hand, that they lack the inventive fertility and the imaginative flight of the Bible of Julius Schnorr indicates that they fall short of universality. These Gospels, it may also be said, pertain not to the Church militant, but to the Church triumphant; not to the world at large, but to a select company of believers. They teach the passive virtues--patience, resignation, long-suffering, and so far realise the painter's ideal of earth as the portal to heaven. Certain spheres were beyond his ken. The marriage of Cana did not for him flow with the wine of gladness; he had no fellowship with the nuptial banquet as painted by Veronese. His pencil shunned the Song of Miriam and the Dance of the Daughter of Herodias; it could not pass, like the pen of England's epic poet, with a light fantastic touch from "Il Penseroso" to "L'Allegro;" his walk was narrow as a convent cloister; his art was attuned to the sound of the vesper bell.

Overbeck's modes of study and habits of work were like himself--secluded and self-contained. His strength did not permit prolonged labour, and his mind was easily put out of tune; yet by method and strict economy of time he was able, as we have seen, to get through a very considerable amount of work. Each day had its allotted task. He rose summer and winter between five and six o'clock, and usually went to church; at seven he took a simple breakfast, then entered his studio and worked on till one. This was the hour for dinner, a frugal meal preceded by the customary grace. After a little repose, action was resumed about half-past two, and continued till four, or sometimes even to six. Then came exercise, mostly a meditative walk; in early times, before the habits of a recluse had grown confirmed, the painter enjoyed an evening's stroll with choice spirits, such as Niebuhr and Bunsen, but in later years he preferred his own communings, his thoughts turning upon art or finding diversion only among the beauties of nature. Within the house he became abstracted; he wandered about lost to outward surroundings, and would brook no interruption. In the winter evenings, at least in later life, he relaxed so far as to join in some table game; but his hours were early, he supped at eight, then retired to his room for meditation, and was always in bed by ten. General family prayers were not the order of the household; the constant habit was individual devotion in private. The Pope took a fatherly care over the pious artist, and granted him privileges permitted only to the few. And Overbeck was on his part strict and zealous in all Church functions, and neglected no means of building up the Christian life. Each day in fact was so nicely apportioned between religion and art, that the morning and the evening worship blended indissolubly with the midday work.

The bodily and mental aspect of Overbeck is well known. I myself had the privilege of first seeing the painter when in the Cenci Palace, as far back as the year 1848. My journal describes a man impressive in presence, tall and attenuated in body, worn by ill-health and suffering, the face emaciated and tied round by a piece of black silk. The mind had eaten into the flesh; the features were sorrow-laden. The voice sank into whispers, the words were plaintive and sparse; noiselessly the artist glided among easels bearing pictorial forms austere as his own person, meekly he offered explanations of works which embodied his very soul, timidly sought retreat and passed as a shadow by--the emblem of an art given in answer to prayer and pertaining to two worlds.

The painter, as drawn or described by himself and others, presents an interesting psychological study: no historic portrait reveals closer correspondence between the inner and the outer man. Cornelius delineated his friend at the age of twenty-three: the type is ascetic and aesthetic after the pre-Raphaelite pattern affected by the Nazarites. F?hrich, one of the fraternity, describes his first impressions: on entering the studio he beheld a tall, spare figure, noble in head, the hair flowing over smooth temples to the shoulders, the forehead reflective, the calm eye "soul-full," the whole aspect that of "inner living." It is added, "at once I felt a soul fulfilment." Yet another artist-disciple, Edwin Speckter, also leaves a graphic record penned in 1831 as follows: "A melancholy and heart-moving impression has Overbeck made upon me: I beheld a tall, spare man, with thin, light hair, shadowed by a black cap, whose eyes looked forth sadly, as with an expression of unutterable suffering. His mouth contracted at each word into a forced yet sweet smile. He looked just as a timid prisoner, who dreads in every corner to see a spy. Yet in all his speech and ways appeared wondrous humility, modesty, and kindly geniality, which, however, did not attract, but in a strange manner repelled. I hardly dared to open my mouth, and only spoke softly and by way of inquiry. Freely to impart my mind as with others was impossible. My breast felt oppressed, and truly I scarcely knew what to say when he unceasingly begged pardon that he should dare to show his works: he called them 'insignificant,' 'nothing,' esteemed himself fortunate that people should choose to give commissions to so unworthy an individual, only he pitied the patrons that they had not fallen on a more capable man. And then when I asked if I might come again, he replied, 'Good heavens! if I would give myself the trouble, he should be only too delighted.' I could almost have laughed, but with tears in my eyes."

FOOTNOTES:

LATE WORKS--CONCLUSION--THE PAINTER AND HIS ART.

Overbeck, as we have seen, deliberately laid out his life for tranquillity; but not sheltered, as Fra Angelico, in a cloister, his serene mind was at times clouded by trouble. First came the death of his son, then he lost a brother, and afterwards was bereaved of his wife. All accounts tell that the darling son, Alfons Maria, inherited the rare gifts of the father, and unhappily also was a sharer in like bodily frailty. He had been reared with tenderest solicitude, in the hope that he might carry on the good work. The profession chosen was that of architecture, an art which the Christian painter felt to be of a "mystic nature," being something "musical," and "the visible emblem of religious enthusiasm." But the bright promise was soon darkened: the youth died in the autumn of 1840, at the early age of eighteen. The father in overwhelming sorrow recounts, in a letter to Emilie Linder, how he had watched over the sick bed, and had snatched up a pencil by the quarter of an hour to assuage his grief. The boy was dutiful, and filled with filial love--he was so good that the people called him a saint. The stricken parent turned to art as "a crutch to support his lameness, and as a solace to his tears."

Overbeck, thirteen years after the death of his son, was in 1853 bereft of his wife, who had been his companion and caretaker for more than thirty years. She died suddenly, yet, as her husband thankfully records, with all the consolations the soul could desire. She had in the morning been to church and taken the sacrament; she was then seized with difficulty of breathing, but, on reaching home, revived, and raised her voice to the praise and glory of God; after, she grew worse, desired to see the priest, received extreme unction, and so died.

The good painter, when the help-mate of his life was taken away, felt utterly desolate and disabled. He had never been accustomed to look after the house; some thirty poor families are said to have been dependent on his bounty; but as for himself he took little thought, and all he desired was to be saved from mundane cares. In Rome there happened to be a certain family of Hoffmanns, who, like the painter, had forsaken Protestantism for Catholicism. They were endowed with the worldly faculties in which the Christian artist was wanting, and so a close relationship had conveniently grown up. Overbeck, on the death of his wife, being absolutely incapable of getting on alone, arranged to live with this family; moreover, he adopted Madame Hoffmann, a lady of forty, as his daughter, and the adoption included the husband and the children. They seem to have made him comfortable, and letters exist which give expression to his gratitude. They, on their side, reaped their reward, inasmuch as on the death of the good artist they came into the possession of the contents of his studio, his papers, and correspondence, moneys, and all other properties. After the aforesaid family arrangement, the blood relations found little favour, and all who bore the name of Overbeck were cut off without a shilling.

Earthly trouble did but turn the painter's gaze heavenwards, and his art, which in time of trial came as consolation, grew all the more spiritual as it passed through waters of affliction. Few painters, even in the good old days, obtained so sympathetic a public. Belief in a mission begat like faith in others, and so solicitations came for drawings and pictures far in excess of available time and strength. Certain commissions could not be entertained, secular subjects had been long eschewed, religion and the Church were alone accounted worthy of service. Therefore, in genial mood, was the great picture for Cologne Cathedral undertaken and carried out. The work occupied no less than nine years; the cartoon was already in course of preparation in 1846, and the picture reached completion in 1855. But, as with other engagements, the negotiations and preliminary correspondence extended over a longer period. Thus, as far back as 23rd August, 1829, Overbeck, while working on the Assisi fresco, writes from Santa Maria degli Angeli to his friend Mosler, stating that the D?sseldorf Kunst-Verein wish for some picture; but prior engagements stand in the way: he foresees that on the return to Rome he will find his studio crowded with works begun, but still unfinished, besides sketches of all sorts and sizes for pictures not even commenced. He therefore asks for delay, and ends with apologies for not writing more on the parental plea that "though it is Sunday, I have long given my promise to my boy Alfons, whose tenth birthday is to-day, that he shall have a ride on a donkey, and I am all the more obliged to keep my word because my fresco work here compels me for the moment to neglect him. We are all, thank God, very well, and enjoy a thousand blessings in this abode of Paradise." Three months later he writes under mistaken impressions as to the character of the commission; he wishes to know the architectural style of the church, and hopes it may be Gothic; he desires accurate measurements, because the picture must appear to belong to its destined place, and then ends in the following characteristic terms: "I repeat once more that the commission fills me with utmost pleasure, but to you I must confide my great anxiety, that I fear this picture is destined for a Protestant church, as I hear it is to be for some newly-built church. Should this, indeed, be the case, then pray try to give the whole thing another direction, as such a commission would not suit me at all, and to refuse it would be very disagreeable to me."

Numerous portraits of Overbeck, by himself and friends, give a retrospective view of his character. Probably the earliest is a pencil drawing in the Vienna Academy by the Viennese painter, Johann Scheffer von Leonhardshoff; the date must be prior to 1810, and the age somewhere about twenty. The head is remarkable, almost abnormal; the outlook on the world is inquiring, querulous, and combative; the penetrative eyes seem in search after undiscovered truth; the pursed-up mouth is prepared for protest; the attenuated nose and contracted nostril betray austerity and acerbity; the whole aspect is that of nervous irritability. The spirit is still in unrest, having sought in vain for the ideal; and unsatisfied yearnings already settle into moody sentiment and melancholy. In these traits are clearly legible the painful perplexities and the severe conflicts of the painter's first period. And like mental states and bodily conditions are carried into the pencil likeness already mentioned, taken in Rome by Cornelius some three years later: for the moment the mind seems masked by a phlegmatic mass of German clay; whatever might be light-giving in the inward man appears clouded. This, as we have seen, was for the young painter a time of doubt and difficulty, and the face remains as yet unillumined. The next known portraits come at a long interval, and show marked changes, which tell of deep and not wholly blissful experiences. In 1837, Carl K?chler, who made a series of portraits of German painters living in Rome, took and engraved the likeness of Overbeck at the age of forty-eight. The head is most striking and impressive; the coronal regions, the reputed abode of the moral and religious faculties, rise in full development; the frontal lobes of the intellect, with the adjacent territories of the imagination, bespeak the philosopher and the poet, while the scant circuit of the posterior organs gives slight sign of animal passion. The mien is that of a mediaeval saint--austere, devout; the eyes steadfastly gaze as on hidden mysteries, yet shine with spiritual radiance; the brow, temple, and cheek are those of the child, yet thinker; all the features have settled into meditative repose, gently shaded by melancholy. Overbeck, at this time in close converse with Heaven, had given himself unreservedly to Christian Art; hence this supremely ideal head. The portrait, contributed to the autograph collection of artists' heads in the Uffizi Gallery, Florence, pleased neither the painter nor any one else, yet it was carried out on the favourite doctrine of uniting the inward with the outward man. The style is hard and dry, the character that of starved asceticism; the expression is Jesuitical, and actual traits are so exaggerated as barely to escape caricature. The artist was painted by Carl Hoffmann, also, it is said, by Genelli and Ernst Deger. The portraits in late life, whilst preserving personal identity, betray somewhat painfully the inroads of age and ill health. Rudolf Lehmann made a faithful study in 1853; Adolf Grass, an inmate in the house, painted in oils a portrait in 1865; and Professor Bendemann, in 1867, prevailed upon the diffident old man to give a sitting. Two years later death entered the house, and Friedrich Geselschap, a friend and artist from D?sseldorf, came a few hours after the eyes were closed, and made a full-size chalk drawing of the head as it peacefully lay on the pillow. This faithful transcript, now on the table before me, scarcely sustains the statement of some writers, that the countenance after death assumed a glorified aspect; but, whether living or dying, peace, though not void of pain, is the pervading expression.

Furthermore, we have to consider and make allowance for certain technical notions of Overbeck and his school. The opinion upheld was that the idea or mental conception constituted the chief value of any art work, that outline or form was the direct language or vehicle of such idea, and that colour, light, shade, surface-texture, or realism, were subordinate, if not derogatory, elements. Thus it is that the works of the master cannot be judged by ordinary standards: hence likewise the drawings and cartoons are superior to the pictures.

The art of Overbeck will live by its merits despite its defects; it is vital and enduring in the three mental elements of thought, form, and composition. The last he matured and mastered with the certainty of a science and the beauty of an art. His compositions have the exactitude, and occasionally the complexity, of geometric problems, neither are they without the rhythm of a stanza, or the music of a song.

The painter's relation to the historic schools of Christian Art has been so fully stated, that little more remains to be said. The old masters were studied much in the same way as nature: their spirit was inhaled, and just as John Gibson was accustomed to ask, What would the Greeks have done? so Overbeck put himself in the place of the early Italian painters, and desired that his pencil might be guided by their spirit. Like Raphael, what he borrowed he made his own, and often added an aspect and a grace peculiar to himself. A gallery of pictures was for him what a well-stored library is to a literary student, who takes from the shelves the author best supplying the intellectual food needed. The method is not new or strange: Bacon teaches how the moderns inherit the wisdom of the ancients, and surely if for art, as for learning, there be advancement in store, old pictures, like old books, must give up the treasure of a life beyond life. Overbeck in the past sought not for the dead, but for the living and enduring.

Given a painter's genius and surroundings, his art usually follows under the law of cause and effect. Overbeck's pictures, as those of others, yield under analysis as their component parts, nature plus tradition, plus individual self. As to the individual man, we have found Overbeck the poet and philosopher, the mystic, somewhat the sentimentalist, and, above all, the devout Catholic. The character is singularly interesting, and the products are unusually complex. He had forerunners and many imitators, yet he stands alone, and were his pencil lost, a blank would be felt in the realm of art. His genius was denied grandeur: he did not rise to the epic, and scarcely expanded into the dramatic; his path was comparatively narrow; his kingdom remained small, yet where he stands is hallowed ground; his art is musical, altogether lyrical, yet toned with pathos, as if the lamentations of The Holy Women at the Sepulchre mingled with the angel-voices of The Nativity. The man and his work are among the most striking and unaccustomed phenomena of the century, and so far as his art is true to God, humanity, and nature, it must endure. His own assurance is left on record: he held that knowledge and doing are of value only so far as they ennoble humanity, and lead to that which is eternal. He believed in the dependence of art on personal character, on elevation of mind and purity of motive. The noblest destiny of the race was ceaselessly before him, and he looked to Christian Art as the means of showing to the world the everlasting truth, and of raising the reality of life to the ideal. In conclusion, I think it not too much to claim Overbeck as the most perfect example, in our time, of the Christian Artist.

The pecuniary rewards of the painter were in no fair proportion to his talents or his industry. His labour, as we have seen, was primarily for the honour of art and religion, and his protracted modes of study, as well as the esoteric character of his compositions, were little likely to meet with adequate return. Overbeck never realised large sums; his prices measured by present standards were ridiculously low, and even when overcrowded with commissions, he is known to have fallen short of ready cash. Happily, after early struggles, he became relieved from pressing anxieties, yet he remained comparatively poor.

Overbeck's influence, the example of his life, the principles of his art, extended far and wide throughout Europe. In France, the German master won the reverence of the Christian artist Flandrin. In England, Pugin held him up to students as a bright example. In Vienna and Prague, Joseph F?hrich, as a disciple, worked diligently. In Munich, Heinrich Hess, and in Spires, Johann Schraudolph, painted extended series of frescoes allied to the same Christian school. In D?sseldorf like traditions live:--Deger, Ittenbach, Carl and Andreas M?ller studied in Rome, and their frescoes in the Rhine chapel at Remagen were inspired by Overbeck. And specially does the mantle of the revered painter rest on his friend Eduard Steinle; important works at Strasbourg, Cologne, Frankfort, M?nster, Klein-Heubach, and Reineck, respond to the spirit of the great artist who, dead, yet speaks.

Brief is the narrative of the approaching end. The infirmities of age scarcely abated the ardent pursuit of an art dear as life itself. Overbeck had suffered from an affection of the eyes, and his later drawings, notwithstanding partial panegyrists, betray a faltering hand, together with some incoherence in thought, or, at least, in the relation of the parts to the whole. For some time, in fact, vitality had been ebbing from his work. The summer of 1869 found him in his favourite retreat of Rocca di Papa, and we are told he was "still busily creating." His country dwelling stood among beauties which, in illness as in health, came with healing power. From this sylvan quietude the aged painter, in June, wrote to his dear friend, Director Steinle, a letter abounding in love and aspiration; he dwells on the serenity of the Italian sky, on the splendour of the landscape stretching before his eye into the far distance; with characteristic modesty he laments that even in old age he is not sufficiently advanced for the great task set before him, and desires without intermission to turn to good account the time still left; and then he counsels his "Brother in Christ" to direct the mind steadfastly towards the glorious olden days which point to the blessed goal.

The next day, according to the painter's wish, the body was taken by the hands of his brother artists to San Bernardo, the little parish church near his house, where he worshipped, and where he is still remembered. An eye-witness writes from Rome to L?beck, on the 18th of November: "I have just come from the burial of our great fellow-countryman. Amid universal grief the funeral mass took place this morning. The mournful ceremony was performed by a German bishop assisted by Cistercian monks; many artists and German students were present, and joined in psalms composed by the Abb? Liszt. The whole function was most solemn, as if the pious spirit of the departed had entered the whole assembly. Around the bier were gathered Protestants as well as Roman Catholics; the coffin bore the many orders which the artist had received, but was never seen to wear; and at the feet lay the crown of laurels which his Roman brethren reverently offered to their acknowledged chief." The body lies in the chapel of St. Francis of Assisi, within the church of San Bernardo. The resting-place is marked by a white marble cross, let into the wall, bearing the inscription "Joannes Fridericus Overbeck--In Pace."

FOOTNOTES:

CHRONOLOGY OF THE LIFE OF OVERBECK.

A.D. PAGE

Assisi, 9, 46, 50, 82, 87.

Bartholdi Casa, 40, 43, 44, 60.

Beauty in the mind and art of Overbeck, 14, 17, 18, 29, 40, 43, 99.

Berlin, National Gallery, 30, 46, 84, 90, 93.

Bible Society, 36.

Bond between Art and the Church, 39.

Bunsen, Baron, 31, 34, 36, 37, 38, 72.

Caffarelli Palazzo, 31, 37.

Canova, 27.

Carstens, 12, 13.

Cartoons by Overbeck, 9, 42, 45, 46, 50, 58, 70, 77, 82, 83, 87, 88, 93, 98.

Catholicism, 27, 31, 32, 33, 34, 35, 38, 52, 53, 58, 62, 69, 79, 81, 92, 102, 106.

Chart of Overbeck Family, 3, 4.

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