d was accustomed to say to himself, "Let not my Christ be ever robbed
of my love; the true home of art is within the soul before the altar of
the Church; the tabernacle of art has its foundations in the worship of
God."

Early Christian Art naturally drew Overbeck towards the Roman Catholic
Church. Frederick Schlegel, Rio, Pugin severally fell under the same
spell. The old mosaics, frescoes, and easel pictures which came down
through unbroken ecclesiastical descent, were for the Christian artist
of the nineteenth century means of grace, and served as revelations of
the Divine. Fra Angelico was taken as a pattern; through living and
loving, watching and praying, believing and working, the High Priesthood
of Art was to be established. And the actual experiences of modern Rome
brought no disillusion; the frivolity and the hollowness which so often
disgust newcomers were either not seen or were turned aside from. The
painter was too pure and childlike to realise the evil, he turned only
to the good: for him the world shone as a land of light; from art he
would exorcise the passions; the true art-life blended heaven with
earth, the ideal could be attained only through the Church: her
teachings were the education of humanity.

The decisive step ultimately taken is recorded as follows: "Overbeck at
Whitsuntide in the year 1813 joined the Catholic Faith, and with joy
entered into the family of the world's Church. His spiritual guide and
confessor was Professor, afterwards Cardinal, Ostini; and the poet
Zacharias Werner, of Konigsberg, as a fellow-countryman from the shores
of the northern sea, acted as godfather at the ceremony. The poet, in
writing at the time to the Prince Primate of Dalberg, said that he
recognised in the young painter 'a true seraphic character of the
Fatherland.'"[4]

A veritable mental epidemic seized on the German artists, and when one
after another of Overbeck's friends followed his example, Niebuhr took
alarm, and bethought himself of what measures could be taken. It appears
that a pamphlet had been published intended expressly for the conversion
of the young Germans, and Niebuhr, feeling the emergency of the
situation, requested a friend to bring or send Luther's works with other
writings against Popery. He adds: "It cannot be expressed how disgusting
these proceedings become the more you see of them. At this moment the
proselytes have Schadow, one of the ablest of the young artists, on
their bait.