Desiderius Lenz

Cornelius had engaged in the Nazarene Brotherhood or Lukasbund at Rome between 1811 and 1819, where he worked with Friedrich Wilhelm Schadow, a Lutheran convert to Roman Catholicism and founder of the Düsseldorf school of painting.

[5] Lenz deplored the fact that modern art had lost direction, no longer valued naturalist representation, and seemed prey to artists' random individual preferences.

Studying the work of the early Christian and Byzantine artists, and of Giotto, taught him that geometry and the arrangement of parts were essential factors for his plans.

[6] Although Wüger was of a Calvinist background both he and the more idealistic Lenz moved to the belief that artists should work together in a Catholic community to produce sacred art suitable for the devotional and liturgical environment.

Around 1866 a plan for an 'Ideal Church' was produced, and in 1868 they met Maurus Wolter, the first abbot of the Benedictine Archabbey of Beuron founded in 1863 under the patronage of Princess Katherina von Hohenzollern.