Nazarenes

Group of German and Austrian artists working mainly in Rome in the early 19th century, who aimed to revive religious art by turning to medieval and Renaissance models. The group first formed in Vienna 1809 and later received several important commissions in Rome, notably in the field of fresco painting. It derived its name from the monastic lifestyle and dress that its members adopted. In many ways the Nazarenes anticipated the English Pre-Raphaelite Brotherhood.

Wackenroder and Schlegel, enthusiasts for the Middle Ages, gave a literary impetus to the movement initiated by Overbeck of Lübeck. With other young artists he established 1810 a kind of monastic workshop in the disused monastery of San Isidoro in Rome, and by 1828 the group included Pforr of Frankfurt, Vogel of Zürich, Cornelius of Düsseldorf, Schadow and Veit of Berlin, Schnorr von Carolsfeld of Leipzig, and Führich and Steinle of Vienna. Their art was derisively described by Goethe and others as ‘Religious-Patriotic’, ‘Art-Catholic’, ‘Romantic’ and ‘Pre-Raphaelite’, none of these descriptions being quite beside the point. The revival of fresco was part of their plan, and the frescoes for the Bartholdi Palace (now at Berlin) by Cornelius, Overback, Veit and Schadow were a result. A stiff and anaemic style characterizes the movement.