a
flowing robe, while the Apostles, as in the compositions of Raphael,
belong less to the Holy Land than to the Roman Forum. This treatment of
draperies was adhered to through all subsequent works, the only change
being further generalisation and a wider departure from naturalism. In
fact it is curious to observe in this early work how much nature enters;
figures and incidents come direct from life, as witness portraits of
contemporaries, groups of little children, young mothers and aged women.
Such passages are happily destitute of what the Viennese academicians
called "style;" they have more of the old German angularity than of "the
Grecian bend." Yet always with Overbeck Beauty is present, only not
thrust in, as by the academicians of the period, in violation of Truth
and Goodness. Also very noteworthy is the impress of thought in the
heads, hands, and attitudes; the painter, as we have seen, came of a
family of thinkers, and the purport of his art was to give expression to
mind. Here again he took as his teachers the early masters, so that
these figures, though more or less studied from nature, might seem to
have walked out from an old panel picture, yet they are more than
complications, they are impressed with the painter's own individuality.
Altogether the work marks not only a starting-point in Overbeck's life,
but a new era in the art of the nineteenth century.

The composition by lapse of time gains biographic and historic value
through the introduction, in accordance with the practice of the old
masters, of contemporary portraits. The painter has placed among the
spectators his father, in character of Burgomaster, also close by, his
mother, a remarkably shrewd old lady. His wife, memorable as a beauty,
is grouped with the three Marys, and by her side sports the painter's
much-loved son, a boy, palm-branch in hand, rejoicing with the
multitude. Nor are the pilgrim painters in Rome forgotten: Overbeck and
his brother artists, Cornelius and others, appear at respectful
distance, gazing on Christ riding into Jerusalem.

Overbeck, before quitting Vienna, pretty much determined his vocation:
he resolved to dedicate his life to Christian Art. On the point of
departure, in writing to a friend in Lubeck, he takes a retrospective
view, and also points to the future. He recalls evening walks under the
shade of trees with congenial companions; he remembers earnest
conversations on poetry, painting, and other manifestati