[16] See 'Briefe eines deutschen Künstlers aus Italien, aus den nachgelassenen Papieren von Edwin Speckter.' Leipzig: Brockhaus, 1846. Also see 'Bunte Blätter, von A. W. Ambros.' Leipzig: Leuckart, 1872.
CHAPTER IV.
LATE WORKS—CONCLUSION—THE PAINTER AND HIS ART.
OVERBECK, as we have seen, deliberately laid out his life for tranquillity; but not sheltered, as Fra Angelico, in a cloister, his serene mind was at times clouded by trouble. First came the death of his son, then he lost a brother, and afterwards was bereaved of his wife. All accounts tell that the darling son, Alfons Maria, inherited the rare gifts of the father, and unhappily also was a sharer in like bodily frailty. He had been reared with tenderest solicitude, in the hope that he might carry on the good work. The profession chosen was that of architecture, an art which the Christian painter felt to be of a "mystic nature," being something "musical," and "the visible emblem of religious enthusiasm." But the bright promise was soon darkened: the youth died in the autumn of 1840, at the early age of eighteen. The father in overwhelming sorrow recounts, in a letter to Emilie Linder, how he had watched over the sick bed, and had snatched up a pencil by the quarter of an hour to assuage his grief. The boy was dutiful, and filled with filial love—he was so good that the people called him a saint. The stricken parent turned to art as "a crutch to support his lameness, and as a solace to his tears."
The picture of The Entombment, or rather The Pietà, in Lübeck, tells of the mind's heavy burden. In 1837 an association had been formed, and money subscribed among friends and admirers, who desired that the native city should possess some work worthy of the painter's renown. In 1842, on the completion of the first sketch and the cartoon, a letter arrived in Lübeck, saying that the grief through which the artist had passed was thrown into a composition that expressed the uttermost anguish of the soul. And again, in 1846, on the completion of the work, the Christian man writes, praying that this "lamentation over the death of the Son of God may arouse in the spectator true faith and repentance. May this painting, begun in tears for my own and only son, and finished in grief for the loss of my dear brother, draw tears from the eyes of Him who shed not only tears, but blood, in order that His death might be our life. Such aim have I always in my art, without which it would seem idle, indeed blasphemous."
The Pietà[1] was exhibited in Rome, and friendly criticisms were followed by final touches, with the filial intent to make a worthy offering to the parental city. In March, 1846, Overbeck announces, in the most modest terms, that the labour of love had at length been dispatched to Lübeck, and, much to his joy, a quiet side chapel of the choir of the Marien Kirche was chosen for its resting‑place. The impression on entering this secluded spot, shut in by a locked gate, is almost startling; the eye gazes, as it were, on the actual scene: the figures are life‑size; the pictorial style is, perhaps, all the more persuasive because it belongs to a remote time—nothing modern breaks the spell of sacred associations. The spectator is transported to a sphere super‑mundane, and altogether religious. The dead Christ, well modelled and a fine piece of flesh painting, lies stretched on the ground in a white winding‑sheet, and, as sometimes with the old painters, the body seems not dead but sleeping, as if expectant of resurrection. The composition is strictly traditional, indeed the Pietà of Perugino in the Pitti Palace has been implicitly followed: around are the holy women weeping, with disciples and Nicodemus and Joseph of Arimathæa. Every head, hand, and drapery, are thoroughly studied. Dark rocks, lofty cypresses, and distant hills, make up a landscape which adds solemnity and depth of colour. Within a few minutes' walk of the Marien Kirche and this Pietà still remains Memling's masterpiece, which, as already related, had deeply impressed the youthful painter while yet in the Lübeck home, but allegiance had been long, we know, transferred from old German to Italian art, and accordingly the style adopted recalls well‑remembered compositions by Francia, Fra Bartolommeo, and Perugino. Not a single new motive intrudes; in fact, Overbeck no more desired a new art than a new religion; for him the old remained unchangeably true,—sacred characters were handed down immutably as by apostolic succession; he would rearrange an attitude, but feared to lose personal identity; he desired that this Pietà should awaken such holy associations as environ old pictures.
Overbeck received a commission from a Yorkshire squire, Mr. Rhodes, to paint an altar‑piece for the Protestant church of St. Thomas, in Leeds, recently built from the design of Mr. Butterfield. Naturally the Incredulity of the Apostle was chosen as the subject, and the picture[2] reached completion in 1851. The composition is in no way out of keeping with the Anglican Church; it is without taint of Romanism; but we are told by Ernst Förster, the Munich critic,[3] that "people were not well pleased with the work," at all events it never reached its destined place. Mr. Rhodes had brought the picture to England from Overbeck's studio, and being for disposal, it was offered to Mr. Beresford Hope, who gladly became the owner, at the price of 300l., the modest sum asked by the artist. The scene is thrown upon canvas with the painter's habitual simplicity, brevity, and breadth. Christ in commanding, yet benignant, attitude, with arm uplifted, utters the words: "Reach hither thy hand and thrust it into my side, and be not faithless, but believing." The Apostle reverently approaches. Beyond stretches a distant landscape with a mountain‑height that might be mistaken for the crested summit of Soracte. The lines of composition flow symmetrically, the sentiment has quiet dignity, with that sense of the divine presence which seldom fails the painter. The picture hangs in the drawing‑room of Mr. Hope's town‑house, and, though painted for a church, conforms to domestic uses, not being "too bright or good for human nature's daily food." The personation of the Saviour when once seen will not be forgotten; the figure, indeed, was cherished by the artist, for the motive with slight variation is repeated in The Vocation of the Apostles James and John (see Illustration), and again in The Sacrament of Marriage. Overbeck had none of the modern unrest which seeks novelty for its own sake; as a Christian artist, his growth was that of grace; and, if tested here and elsewhere by the worthiness of his conception of the God‑Man, no painter attained a more heavenly ideal. It is hard to realise on earth a more perfect divinity than seen in the design Feed my Sheep. The Incredulity of St. Thomas has been exhibited in England twice; first in 1853, in the Royal Academy, where, I remember, it was honoured with a conspicuous place in the large room; afterwards, in 1857, it was seen in the Manchester Art Treasures. As far as I know, it is the only large and important work of the master submitted to the English public.
Overbeck, thirteen years after the death of his son, was in 1853 bereft of his wife, who had been his companion and caretaker for more than thirty years. She died suddenly, yet, as her husband thankfully records, with all the consolations the soul could desire. She had in the morning been to church and taken the sacrament; she was then seized with difficulty of breathing, but, on reaching home, revived, and raised her voice to the praise and glory of God; after, she grew worse, desired to see the priest, received extreme unction, and so died.