Local Roots – European Connections. The Position of Nazarene Art in 19th-Century Europe

The art of the early 19th century and especially the question of its directions after the year 1800 has repeatedly been the subject of attention of art historians in recent decades. The conventional image of the 19th century as a century of varying historicist styles, insisting on academic rules, sentimental and/or heroic religious and historic imagery and bourgeois taste seems to have more to it than just being a prelude to the modernism that emerged. In Central European visual arts, the question of transition from the late 18th century into the modern era is related to the study of a series of long undervalued artists whose names have (now) either almost vanished or were dismissed (in the past). An example of this are Johann Friedrich Overbeck (1789 – 1869) and his followers – Nazarenes – also known as monk-artists. This issue of Forum Historiae, first entirely in English, is devoted to studies which examine European Nazarenism and role of Joseph Führich (1800 – 1876) in it, from various points of views and perspectives, taking into account the autonomous reception of Nazarenism in different countries, but also the unifying role of the model images produced by key Nazarene artists.