Nazarenes

Nazarenes (năz`ərēnz), group of German artists of the early 19th cent., who attempted to revive Christian art. In 1809, J. F. Overbeck and Franz Pforr formed an art cooperative in Vienna called the Brotherhood of St. Luke. The group moved to Rome and established themselves in a disused monastery. They were joined by Philipp Veit, Peter von Cornelius, Schnorr von Carolsfeld, and Schadow-Godenhaus. They lived simply, devoting the mornings to household tasks and the afternoons to painting. Many of them collaborated on the frescoes in the Casa Bartholdy (1816–17; now in Berlin) and the Casino Massimo (1822–32, Rome). Using early Italian and late medieval German pictures as models, they worked within the limits of religious dogma and not from nature. Although their paintings were uncomfortably composed, poorly colored, and lacking in imagination, the Nazarenes exerted considerable influence in Germany and in England upon the Pre-Raphaelites.