Painting the sacred in the Age of Romanticism

Abstract

(ProQuest: ... denotes non-US-ASCII text omitted.)This extensive and in-depth study attempts to elevate Nazarene art from the lesser place it has come to occupy in the art historical canon. It is, however, much more a performance of the pleasures of close reading. A reader could hardly form the impression that Grewe has looked too thoroughly or read too much into a work; one always comes to feel that the art objects in question reward a prolonged gaze. Stated specifically, the author's argument concerns visual literacy in relation to biblical motifs, or how Old Testament typology in Nazarene art is linked to its later antitypes. Starting with works by Franz Pforr and Johann Friedrich Overbeck, Grewe investigates themes including friendship, brotherly love and familial love, and the importance of personal witnessing (which is introduced to account for the profusion of self-portraiture during the period). Grewe examines how the Lukasbund , or the Brotherhood of St. Luke, formed in Vienna in 1809, employed Old Testament imagery, refiguring it in a style distinct from the allegorical one that generally guides the reception of Romantic art. Grewe asserts that Pforr's work is allegorical insofar as it is religious at heart, yet it is also quite open to secular themes. She advances her argument about Nazarene secularization by highlighting the interaction between the artists' intellectual engagements and their religious practices. Starting from this methodological point, her study's six thoughtful and thorough chapters approach Nazarene painting from a wide variety of perspectives.Grewe's study of Overbeck's drawing Jacob Reproaching Laban for Giving him Rachel in Place of Leah (1807/1808) is a good example of refined close reading. Here the author attributes substantial intentionality to Overbeck, yet it is really Grewe herself who brings to the image an attention to stillness and a fascination with the figures' emotional states. She examines how Rachel gazes at Leah, and how the story is told through gestures and expressions. What emerges is the refined ekphrasis of the art historian, who sees pathos and desire in the figures' body language. There is something in Overbeck's faces and forms--in their curvature and personality--that permits Grewe to supplement the work persuasively with powerful narrative. She is best where she examines female figures such as Sulamith and Maria, who regularly appear as doubles of one another in Nazarene art. In Pforr's 1811 oil painting, for example, Maria appears as a figure for unsatisfied longing and unfulfilled destiny. Studying the erotic economy (82) of Sulamith and Maria , the author demonstrates a keen eye for detail.The quality of the reproductions throughout the book is impressive, and Grewe was fortunate to have published with Ashgate, who has provided her with ample space for images. To choose one example: the colors in Victor Orsel's Le Bien et Le Mal (1832) are arresting. In her discussion of that work Grewe both plots the trajectory from the Lukasbund to the Nazarenes, and explores how St. …