Peter von Cornelius

Peter von Cornelius (23 September 1783, Düsseldorf – 6 March 1867, Berlin) was a German painter; one of the main representatives of the Nazarene movement.

Cornelius continued the series following his move to Rome, and it was published in twelve engravings between 1816 and 1826, under the title Bilder zu Goethe's Faust.

[1] Cornelius arrived in Rome on 14 October 1811, and soon became one of the most promising of the Lukasbund or "Nazarene Brotherhood", a group of young German artists resident in the city, which included Johann Friedrich Overbeck, Friedrich Wilhelm Schadow, Philipp Veit, Julius Schnorr von Karolsfeld and Ludwig Vogel, a fraternity (some of whom selected a ruinous convent for their home) who had banded together for resolute study and mutual criticism.

[2] At Rome Cornelius participated, with other members of the brotherhood, in the decoration of the Casa Zuccari (the residence of Jakob Salomon Bartholdy, the Prussian consul general),[4] and the Villa Massimi, while at the same time also working on designs for the illustration of the Nibelungenlied.

[2] In 1819, Cornelius left the frescoes at the Villa Massimi unfinished and returned to Germany, having been summoned to Munich by the crown-prince of Bavaria, later King Ludwig I, to direct the decorations for his new sculpture gallery, the Glyptothek.

[1] He soon discovered, however, that attention to such widely separated duties was incompatible with the just performance of either, and so eventually he resigned his post at Düsseldorf, some of his pupils following him to Munich to assist him there.

This Dürer influence is manifest in a tendency to overcrowding in composition, in a degree of attenuation in the proportions of, and a poverty of contour in, the nude figure, and also in a leaning to the selection of Gothic forms for draperies.

The cartoons for the Glyptothek were all by Cornelius's own hand; in the Pinakothek, however, his sketches and small drawings sufficed, and at the Ludwigskirche even the invention of some of the subjects was entrusted to Hermann.

Yet in less than half a century Cornelius founded a great school, revived mural painting, and turned the gaze of the art world towards Munich.

The German revival of mural painting had its effect upon England, as well as upon other European nations, and led to the famous cartoon competitions held in Westminster Hall, and ultimately to the partial decoration of the Houses of Parliament.