Friedrich Wilhelm Schadow

From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

Friedrich Wilhelm Schadow (September 7, 1789 - March 19, 1862), a German Romantic painter, was the second son of Johann Gottfried Schadow.

In 1806-1807 he served as a soldier; in 1810 he went with his elder brother Rudolph to Rome. He became one of the leaders among the Nazarene movement in art. Following the example of Overbeck and others, he joined the Roman Catholic Church, and held that an artist must believe and live out the truths he essays to paint. The sequel showed that Schadow was qualified to shine less as a painter than as a teacher and director. As an author, he is known by his lecture, Ueber den Einfluss des Christentums auf die bildende Kunst (Düsseldorf, 1843), and the biographical sketches, Der moderne Vasari (Berlin, 1854).

The Prussian consul, General Bartholdy, befriended his young compatriots by giving them a commission to decorate with frescoes a room in his house on the Pincian Hill. The artists engaged were Schadow, Cornelius, Overbeck and Veit; the subject selected was the story of Joseph and his brethren, and two scenes, the "Bloody Coat" and "Joseph in Prison," fell to the lot of Schadow. Schadow was in 1819 appointed professor in the Berlin Academy, and his ability and thorough training gained devoted disciples.

To this period belong his pictures for churches. In 1826 the professor was made director of the Düsseldorf Academy. The high and sacred art matured in Rome Schadow transplanted to Düsseldorf; he reorganized the Academy, which in a few years grew famous as a centre of Christian art to which pupils flocked from all sides. In 1837 the director selected, at request, those of his scholars best qualified to decorate the chapel of St Apollinaris on the Rhine with frescoes, which when finished were accepted as the fullest and purest manifestation of the Düsseldorf school on its spiritual side. One of his famous students, Heinrich Mucke carried on the liturgical art emphasis both in painting and frescoes.

To 1842 belong the "Wise and Foolish Virgins," in the Stadel Institute, Frankfurt; this large and important picture is carefully considered and wrought, but lacks power. Schadow's fame indeed rests less on his own creations than on the school he formed. In Düsseldorf a reaction set in against the spiritual and sacerdotal style he had established; and in 1859 the party of naturalism, after a severe struggle, drove the director from his chair. Schadow died at Düsseldorf in 1862, and a monument in the square which bears his name was raised at the jubilee held to commemorate his directorate.

The Düsseldorf School that Schadow directed became internationally renowned, attracting such American painters as George Caleb Bingham, Eastman Johnson, Worthington Whittredge, Richard Caton Woodville, William S. Haseltine, James M. Hart, and William Morris Hunt and producing the German emigre Emmanuel Leutze.