The Nazarenes: Characteristics And History Of This Artistic Movement
Rome, 1810. A group of artists known as the Brotherhood of Saint Luke has gathered in the abandoned monastery of San Isidoro. They come from northern Europe and sport very long beards and somewhat disheveled dresses, which make the countrymen start calling them I Nazarene (the Nazarenes). These painters devote themselves to a humble life, dedicated entirely to religion and art.
The Nazarenes were one of the first cohesive protest movements against official academic art.. Framed in the general current of Sturm und Drang Germanic and, therefore, of Pre-Romanticism, were the clear precedent of the Pre-Raphaelite Brotherhood which, in the mid-19th century, recovered its artistic postulates.
In today’s article we will take a tour of the origin and work of this group of painters, sadly forgotten today and who, however, meant so much for the history of art.
The Nazarenes or the Brotherhood of Saint Luke: the origin of a name
The inhabitants of Rome called them Nazarenesthe name with which they have gone down in history. However, they always called themselves the Brotherhood of Saint Luke, in allusion to the holy evangelist who, according to tradition, made a portrait of the Virgin, which is why he has always been considered the patron saint of painters.
The name was not only related to this aspect. The Nazarenes intended, above all, to recover the medieval religiosity that, according to them, had been lost with the rise of academic painting in the 17th century and, above all, the 18th century. This religious spirit was, in reality, astonishingly modern at the time.since it entailed a forceful reaction against the prevailing artistic and cultural norms. This is why the Brotherhood of San Lucas has been considered one of the first artistic countercurrents; If the Nazarenes had lived in the 20th century, they would undoubtedly have been classified among the first avant-garde.
The search for lost spirituality
As always, to understand an artistic movement we must place ourselves in the social and historical context. We are at the beginning of the 19th century. Academicism triumphs in the southern countries, especially in France, where Napoleon uses majestic Neoclassicism as a vehicle for the expression of his power and greatness. This language, which is directly inspired by classical models (especially those of Ancient Rome) is ideal for capturing the martial and austere language of the new France.
But in northern Europe things are different. The Germanic countries have never had such a deep Romanization, so their identification with Neoclassicism is scarce. On the contrary, Since the 18th century, a deep anti-academic and deeply nationalist sentiment began to emerge in the territories of today’s Germany.which translates into the movement of Sturm und Drang.
This movement, included in the generic nomenclature of preromanticismis the seed from which the brotherhood of the Nazarenes will flourish. With the Sturm und Drangthis group of artists shares the ideals of returning to a supposed original “purity”, which can only be found in the medieval past.
In any case, there are clear differences between the aesthetics of the Brotherhood of Saint Luke and the German pre-Romantic artists. While the latter are influenced by an evident nationalist current, the Nazarenes flee from any grandiloquence and prefer a return to primitive Christian simplicity and humility.
The Middle Ages as a constant source of inspiration
To do this, they do not only look at German models from the 15th century (such as, for example, Albrecht Dürer). In fact, its main objective is Italian art before the Cinquecento: Fra Angelico, Il Perugino, the first Raphael. The adoration of art from before the appearance of academicism is deep and almost obsessive. The Nazarenes see in the Middle Ages a primitive and true worldwhere the form of representation did not prevail, but rather the spiritual meaning of what was created. In part, they were right, but, as always, there is a certain amount of idealization in their philosophy.
It is true and indisputable that medieval art does not seek formal perfections. What is really important is what is represented; Artistic creations seek, therefore, the genuine and direct expression of a message, generally religious, and this is what fascinates the Nazarenes. At the beginning of the 19th century, art has been “corrupted” and sold to the form. Consequently, for these artists it is necessary to recover the simple spirit of the medieval craftsman who, in their opinion, does not have the ego or personality that characterizes the modern artist, and creates only based on this genuine spiritual impulse.
Well, it is clear that the Nazarene vision was clearly exaggerated. Because, unlike what they believed, the medieval craftsman did not create through a religious impulse, but under the guidelines of the clients who commissioned him to do the work. His work was ultimately a commissioned workas could be the work of a shoemaker or a basket maker. Therefore, although, logically, artists could imbue their work with a certain originality, we must not forget that art in the Middle Ages was a simple manual task like any other.
The members of the Brotherhood of San Lucas, on the other hand, see these artisans as “children”, in the purest sense of the word. In their eyes, the medieval artist represents a world in which human feeling is not yet corrupted, and therefore they take these models for inspiration. In this sense, they are very far from the idea of Giorgio Vasari, who maintained that childhood represented creative “clumsiness,” and adulthood, its sublimation.
The great protagonists of the artistic movement
On July 10, 1809, two young students from the Vienna Academy of Fine Arts founded the Brotherhood of Saint Luke, the Lukasbund. These are Friedrich Overbeck (1789-1869) and his companion Franz Pförr (1788-1812), who will become the first leaders and soul of the movement. The two felt quite fed up with the neoclassical atmosphere that reigned in the academy, and swore to recover “true art” through a constant struggle against academic precepts.
It was Overbeck who designed what would be the emblem of the brotherhood and which should appear in all the paintings produced by its members, on the back of the canvas. In the emblem appeared, among other elements, the initials of the first members of the brotherhoodwhich, in addition to the founders, also included the painters Ludwig Vogel (1788-1879), Johann Konrad Hottinger (1788-1827), Joseph Wintergerst (1783-1867) and Joseph Sutter (1781-1866). A detail that inevitably reminds us of the Pre-Raphaelites, their most direct heirs, who signed all their paintings with the initials PRB (Pre Raphaelite Brotherhood).
Overbeck’s work is the perfect summary of the ideals that drive the Nazarenes. Some of his works are so faithful to the style of the first Raphael that they could well be confused with a work by the Renaissance master: for example, the extraordinary Mary and Elizabeth with Jesus and Baptist childrenexecuted in 1825 and which irremediably goes back to the Raphaelite madonnas.
Something similar happens with the Annunciation by another member of the group, Julius Schnorr von Carosfeld (1794-1872), painted in 1820 and representing the biblical scene in the purest quattrocentista style.
Broadly speaking, Nazarenes dispense with perspective and any formal aspect that is based on academic precepts. They prefer uniform light and avoid chiaroscuro, despite the fact that many of their compositions are also inspired by baroque models. On the other hand, they show a special predilection for themes of biblical inspiration, medieval scenes and towards techniques that were already out of use at that time, such as fresco. In fact, one of their most famous works are the impressive frescoes that the group created for the so-called Bartholdy House in Rome.
Overbeck and his companions moved to Rome in 1810 and settled in the monastery of San Isidoro, ready to live an almost monastic existence. It is then, as we have already mentioned, when they began to be known as “Nazarenes”, although they never abandoned the name Brotherhood of Saint Luke. Already in Rome, the other great Nazarene painter, Peter von Cornelius (1783-1867), joined the group, especially interested in fresco mural painting, practically forgotten in those years.
The end of the brotherhood and its influence on art
In 1812, the premature death of Franz Pförr at the age of twenty-four is a hard blow for the brotherhood, especially for Friedrich Overbeck, who plunges into a kind of depression that makes him cling to religiosity like never before. His religious concern is such that he ends up converting to Catholicism (he was Protestant), because he believes he sees in it the true essence of primitive Christianity.
In fact, Overbeck was the only one of the Nazarenes who remained in Rome, living his existence in a practically monastic manner until the year of his death, and never abandoned his religious style inspired by medieval masters. The other members soon began to go their separate ways; By the 1830s, the Nazarene movement was already finite.
Despite this, it would have clear resonances in later painters, especially in the Pre-Raphaelite Brotherhood, who in the mid-19th century took up practically all of their ideals. In the Hispanic sphere, the Nazarenes had special influence on the so-called “Catalan Nazarenism.”which around 1840 recovered the idealized medieval past of Catalonia and whose main representative is Claudio Lorenzale Sugrañés (1815-1889). Lorenzale traveled to Rome in 1837 and there established contact with Overbeck who, as we have already said, resided in the Italian city until his death.
Of course, the influence of the Nazarenes can also be seen in the Symbolists and in the naive painters of the end of the century. In those years, realism and academicism were launching their swan song. Soon the avant-garde would arrive, which would end up disrupting the foundations of “official art.” However, it is worth remembering that, a hundred years earlier, a group of Viennese artists already raised their voice against the academy and proposed an art that was much purer and connected to human reality.
