Chapter 1

LÜBECK--VIENNA.

Birth and Parentage--Early Days in Lübeck--The Artist's learned and religious Ancestry--His Father Doctor of Laws and Burgomaster--Chart of the Family--Creed for a Purist Painter--Young Overbeck leaves Lübeck for Vienna: his Studies in the Academy--Decadence of Art in the Austrian Capital--Rise of the German Pre-Raphaelite Brotherhood--Conflict between the Old Party and the New--Overbeck and his Friends expelled from the Academy--He resolves to make Christian Art the Vocation of his Life--Leaves Vienna for Rome Page 1