Overbeck

The biography follows a German painter associated with the Nazarene movement from early training in Lübeck and Vienna to his long residence in Rome, chronicling personal milestones and artistic development. It recounts the formation of a German Pre‑Raphaelite circle, their conflicts with academic institutions, communal life in Rome, and the artist's conversion to Roman Catholicism. Major commissions, frescoes, easel works, and preparatory drawings are described alongside discussions of technique, composition, colour, and the artist's ideals of Christian art amid classic, romantic, and naturalistic debates. Closing chapters treat later projects, papal commissions, bereavements, critical reception, and aspects of character, memory, and working habits.