Overbeck Friedrich

Overbeck, Friedrich (1789-1869), a German painter, was born at Liibeck. He went to Vienna in 1806, and to Rome in 1810. Here, with his comrades, Cornelius and Schadow, he formed a new school in art, the principle of which was a return- to the method of the old pre-Renaissance painters. In 1811 he painted a Madonna, and followed this up by frescoes of Joseph Sold by his Brethren and Seven Years of Famine. He confined himself to devotional subjects, and in 1814 joined the Roman Catholic Church. Other notable works of his are the Entry of Christ into Jerusalem and the Influence of Christianity upon Art, and five frescoes on subjects taken from the Jerusalem Delivered. He designed in charcoal and chalk, and his frescoes were better than his oil-paintings.