OVERBECK, Friedrich

This picture is modeled on Italian Renaissance paintings. In spite of the colour, the figures appear to be composed of flat surfaces; the cool, transparent colour scheme simply serves to differentiate the forms.

This painting was inspired by the novel and painting Shulamit and Mary by Franz Pforr. In his painting Pforr separates the Italian and the German worlds, the Old and the New Testament, while Overbeck eliminates the division and creates a sisterly unity. Rightly the title was changed five years later to Italia and Germania, for the clothes, the laurel and myrtle wreaths and of course the different landscapes and houses make it very evident what is meant. The physiognomy and the character of the two women is Overbeck’s interpretation of Italian and German girls. The girls are shown as imaginary brides, wonderfully idealized and so delicately perceived that they have hardly an equal in Nazarene art. Overbeck has set a monument to the encounter of German artists with Italy that could hardly be more ardent or worthy of its subject.

This is a copy by the artist of the original (presently in the Neue Pinakothek, Munich) painted in Rome between 1811 and 1828.

The Nazarenes painted quasi-devotional portraits of each other and their ideal wives or longed-for lovers. This portrait represents an example.

It was under Franz Pforr’s influence that Overbeck turned to old German masters, such as Holbein, Cranach and D�rer. In this painting he created a monument to his friend. From an arched Gothic window Pforr is challenging the viewer with a penetrating but pious eye, as if asking: “Why have you not found the peace of piety?” His wife is deep in reverence, as if blessed by the lily, and the church tower provides an appropriate background. Pforr’s sign, the cross over the skull, the vine tendrils, the watchful cat or falcon of hope, are all symbolically included.

The painter of this fresco was inspired by Domenichino’s paintings in Grottaferrata which had just been restored and a number of Germans sojourning in Rome expressed admiration for them after visiting the monastery at Grottaferrata on walks into the Roman countryside.