240 PROCEEDINGS OF THE AMERICAN ACADEMY 



years lafer, when Niebuhr arrived there as Prussian ambassador, he 

 found Overbeck and other young artists, who were then laying the 

 foundations of the new school of painting in Germany, divided into 

 two parties, professing utterly opposed principles. These were the 

 Nazarenes, so called from their mode of life and their austerity of 

 demeanor, whose leaders, Overbeck, Wilhelm, Schadow, and Veit, late 

 converts to Romanism, looked upon art as the servant of religion, 

 and lived like monks in the old convent of San Isidoro, preparing then- 

 simple meals in the kitchen of the convent ; and the Pagans, as they 

 might have been denominated, who were devout adoi'ers of the antique. 

 This latter party numbered Thorwaldsen, Koch, and Schlick in its 

 ranks. Cornelius stood midway between the two parties, but his dis- 

 like of the proselytism which was practised by the Nazarenes rather 

 impelled him in the opposite direction ; and, although a Catholic, 

 he openly said that when they made their first convert he would 

 become a Protestant. 



Niebuhr tells us that the Catholicism of Cornelius was at bottom 

 nothing more than the creed of the old Protestants, " thanks to the 

 training which he had received from a pious, though by no means big- 

 oted mother " ; but Overbeck, he adds, " is, on the contrary, an enthusi- 

 ast, and quite illiberal ; he is a very amiable man and endowed with a 

 magnificent imagination, but incapable by nature of standing alone, 

 and by no means so clear-headed as he is practical." 



In the society of such men as Niebuhr, Bunsen, and Brandis these 

 artists met on the most friendly terms, though certain topics (teste 

 Niebuhr) were necessarily excluded from conversation on account of 

 the Catholicism of Overbeck and Schadow. 



A few years after Overbeck had settled at Rome, the Prussian 

 Consul-General, Salomm Bartholdy (Mendelssohn's uncle), proposed 

 to him, together with Veit, Schadow, and Cornelius, to decorate with 

 frescos a room in the Palazzo Zuccheri, where he resided, offering 

 himself to meet all material expenses. Thus these young and ardent 

 spirits were enabled to carry out their long-cherished project of reviv- 

 ing an almost forgotten art in the very city where its greatest master- 

 pieces had been executed, nearly three centuries before, by the hands 

 of Raphael and Michael Angelo. 



The history of Joseph was selected for treatment, and Overbeck 

 painted the episode of Joseph sold by his brethren to the Ishmaelites. 

 In this, his first important work, the young artist displayed his life- 



