[Footnote 14: The cartoons for the Gospels, originally made for an art
dealer in Prague, were afterwards acquired by the late Baron Lotzbeck of
Weihern, near Munich, and are now in the possession of the son, the
present Baron: they are framed and protected under glass.]
[Footnote 15: See 'L'Évangile Illustré: Quarante Compositions de
Fréderic Overbeck: gravées par les meilleurs Artistes de l'Allemagne:'
Schulgen, Düsseldorf and Paris. Overbeck had an aversion to the heavy
and mechanical schools of engraving; he objected to meaningless masses
of shadow and to the multiplication of lines inexpressive of form.
Accordingly these engravings from the Gospels, in common with other
plates from the master, possess merits the opposites to such defects.
Like the original drawings, they are chiefly dependent on outline, and
even their slightness is not without the advantage of suggestiveness.
Four illustrations here are facsimiles of the engravings.]
[Footnote 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."
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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