must give up the
treasure of a life beyond life. Overbeck in the past sought not for the
dead, but for the living and enduring.

Given a painter's genius and surroundings, his art usually follows under
the law of cause and effect. Overbeck's pictures, as those of others,
yield under analysis as their component parts, nature plus tradition,
plus individual self. As to the individual man, we have found Overbeck
the poet and philosopher, the mystic, somewhat the sentimentalist, and,
above all, the devout Catholic. The character is singularly interesting,
and the products are unusually complex. He had forerunners and many
imitators, yet he stands alone, and were his pencil lost, a blank would
be felt in the realm of art. His genius was denied grandeur: he did not
rise to the epic, and scarcely expanded into the dramatic; his path was
comparatively narrow; his kingdom remained small, yet where he stands is
hallowed ground; his art is musical, altogether lyrical, yet toned with
pathos, as if the lamentations of The Holy Women at the Sepulchre
mingled with the angel-voices of The Nativity. The man and his work are
among the most striking and unaccustomed phenomena of the century, and
so far as his art is true to God, humanity, and nature, it must endure.
His own assurance is left on record: he held that knowledge and doing
are of value only so far as they ennoble humanity, and lead to that
which is eternal. He believed in the dependence of art on personal
character, on elevation of mind and purity of motive. The noblest
destiny of the race was ceaselessly before him, and he looked to
Christian Art as the means of showing to the world the everlasting
truth, and of raising the reality of life to the ideal. In conclusion, I
think it not too much to claim Overbeck as the most perfect example, in
our time, of the Christian Artist.

The pecuniary rewards of the painter were in no fair proportion to his
talents or his industry. His labour, as we have seen, was primarily for
the honour of art and religion, and his protracted modes of study, as
well as the esoteric character of his compositions, were little likely
to meet with adequate return. Overbeck never realised large sums; his
prices measured by present standards were ridiculously low, and even
when overcrowded with commissions, he is known to have fallen short of
ready cash. Happily, after early struggles, he became relieved from
pressing anxieties, yet he remained comparativel