Nevertheless, Munich is not without witness to the spirit of the mystic and poetic painter. King Ludwig, himself at least a poetaster, hit upon a felicitous comparison, oft since reiterated, when he designated Overbeck the St. John and Cornelius the St. Paul in pictorial art. The two artists, like the two apostles, had a common faith, though a diverse calling, and their several works testify how greatly the one was indebted to the other. Overbeck brought with him to Bavaria a drawing of exceptional power, Elias in the Chariot of Fire (1827), a composition which reflects as indubitably the greatness of Cornelius as Raphael's Isaiah responds to the grandeur of Michelangelo. But this lofty strain of inspiration proved transient, and Overbeck, as seen in Munich, truly personates the apostle who leant on the Saviour's breast. The New Pinakothek is fortunate in the possession of three pictures.[3] One is the Portrait of Vittoria Caldoni, already enumerated among earliest efforts; another is the Holy Family, illustrating these pages; the composition recalls Raphael's Florentine manner. The third, Italy and Germany, must be accounted exceptional because secular; the motive, however, rises above common life into symbolism. Two maidens in tender embrace are depicted seated in a landscape, the one blonde and homely, personifying Germania; the other dark and ideal, as if Tasso inspired, typical of Italia. The intention has given rise to interesting speculation. The German girl leans forward in earnest entreaty, while her Italian sister remains immobile and impenetrable. And herein some have seen shadowed forth a divided mind between two nationalities. Solicitations had come from Germany, yet, after moments of hesitation, Overbeck held fast to the land of his adoption, and his resolve may not inaptly find expression in "Italia," a figure which seems to say, "Vex not my spirit; leave me to rest in this land of peace and of beauty." But this composition is supposed to speak of yet wider experiences. The painter had given much time to the writing of a romance descriptive or symbolic of human life, wherein he embodied his own personal feelings and aspirations. The two principal characters in this unpublished story are said to be here depicted under the guise of "Italia and Germania." The composition thus becomes somewhat autobiographic.
Munich is identified with a friendship between Overbeck and a lady, which ranks among the most memorable of Platonic attachments. Fräulein 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[4] 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.
The painter brought to Munich ten or more drawings executed in Rome with a view to his travelling expenses, and Emilie Linder lost no time in making an offer for the set, to add to her private collection. The artist, with suitable diffidence, hesitated, yet looked on the proposal as an interposition of Providence, and then begged for the money at once, to help him on his further journey into Germany. Though success had delivered him from poverty, and commissions came in faster than he could paint, yet at no time did he roll in wealth; spite of scrupulous economy, he never much more than paid his way; and a few years later, when, for Emilie Linder, engaged on The Death of St. Joseph,[5] he gladly accepted
beforehand the price by instalments. The correspondence shows a tender conscience, with a humility not devoid of independence. The art products were in fact of so high a quality that the painter conferred a greater favour than any he could receive in return.
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 Lübeck. 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 Plätzchen.'" 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.[6]
From Heidelberg Overbeck travelled to Frankfort—a city soon to become a focus of the wide‑spreading revival. Here the apostle of sacred art made the acquaintance of the poet Clemens Brentano, and fell among other friends and adorers. Philip Veit, his fellow‑worker in the Casa Bartholdi and the Villa Massimo, had just been appointed Director of the Städel Institute, where he executed one of the noblest of frescoes—The Introduction of the Arts into Germany through Christianity. Likewise among warm adherents was Johann Passavant, a painter who in Rome had joined the brethren, a critic who made a name by the 'Life of Raphael.' Overbeck was here esteemed "the greatest living artist," and some expressed "the cherished thought, the earnest desire" that the painter should be secured for Frankfort. But as this proved out of the question, the promise was gladly accepted of the master‑work since famous as The Triumph of Religion in the Arts. Cologne next received a visit, and the Cathedral choir having advanced towards completion, the assistance of the Christian painter was naturally solicited: The Assumption of the Virgin, now adorning a side chapel, counts among the memorable fruits of the painter's timely visit to his native land. This northern journey was extended as far as Düsseldorf, a sequestered town already growing illustrious for its school of religious painting. Wilhelm Schadow, co‑partner in Roman labours, had here, as Director of the Academy, gathered round him devoted scholars, and Overbeck greeted his old friend as a missionary in the common cause. After receiving on all hands respectful adulations which would have turned a vainer head, the traveller bent his steps southwards, and reached Italy by way of Strasburg and Switzerland. On reaching Rome, he writes on the 1st of December to Cornelius in characteristic tone: "You will understand with what lively joy I once more saw my beloved Rome; I therefore will not conceal the painful impression which the distracted opinions and doctrines in the Fatherland have left in my mind, but I feel rest in the persuasion that, through the dispensation of Providence, my lot has been cast in this Roman seclusion, not that I intend to lay my hands idly in my lap, but, on the contrary, I shall endeavour to work with my utmost ability, spurred on all the more by the thought that even here at a distance I shall move in your circle." Assuredly as to professional prospects the passage of the Alps had extended the artist's circuit: the Italian works which chiefly mark the painter's first period had come to an end; henceforth Overbeck's labours, though prosecuted within the Roman studio, were for the good of Germany.
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!"[7]
Overbeck about this time, in letters to Emilie Linder, begins to express ultra views, to the prejudice of his art. He pleads that certain Biblical drawings may have for her more worth because the religious meaning dominates over the art skill. In like manner he writes apologetically concerning The Death of St. Joseph. The picture, he urges, embodies not so much a historic fact as an idea, the intent being not to lead the spectator to the real, but to something beyond. The purist painter then proceeds to express his invincible reluctance to study the subject from the side of life; models he had carefully avoided, because he feared that a single glance at nature would destroy the whole conception. It is with sincere regret that I have to record so pernicious a doctrine. Surely the artist's special function must always be to find out the divine element in nature, and fatal is the day when first he calls into question the essential oneness between Nature and God. But Overbeck's peculiar phase of Catholicism marred as well as made his art. Through the Church he entered a holy, heavenly sphere, and his pictures verily stand forth as the revelation of his soul. But the sublimest of doctrines sometimes prove to be utterly unpaintable, and certainly the tenets to which Overbeck gave a super‑sensuous turn, in the end perplexed and clouded his art. Outraged nature took her revenge, and the sequel shows that Overbeck so diverted his vision and narrowed his pictorial range that his art fell short of the largeness of nature and humanity.