Overview
Friedrich Wilhelm Schadow was born in Berlin in 1788 to the celebrated sculptor Gottfried Schadow from whom he first received drawing lessons. He later turned to painting, and was instructed by the royal Prussian court painter Friedrich Georg Weitsch. In 1806, Schadow joined the Prussian army’s campaign against Napoleon, participating in the War of the Fourth Coalition, until the army’s defeat in 1807. He eventually resumed his artistic studies, traveling with his elder brother the sculptor Rudolph Schadow to Rome in 1810, where he was attracted to the Brotherhood of St Luke’s vision to reenchant the spirit of Christian art. He soon converted from Lutheranism to Catholicism, and became one of the leading painters of the Nazarene movement. While in Rome, Schadow along with his fellow Nazarenes was commissioned to decorate a room in the residence of the Prussian consul general Jakob Salomon Bartholdy, a prime advocate of Nazarene philosophies and ideals. Schadow spent the next three years working on two Old Testament murals, The Bloody Coat and Joseph in Prison.
Appointed to a professorship at the prestigious Berlin Academy of the Arts, Schadow returned to Germany in 1819, where his ability to thoroughly train and teach gained him many devoted disciples. In 1826, he succeeded Cornelius as director of the Düsseldorf Academy of the Arts. Surrounded by a circle of passionate pupils, Schadow developed what became known internationally as “The Düsseldorf School”. With an emphasis on landscape and plein air painting, the school became a training ground for thousands of painters and had a lasting impact on the religious art of Germany. During Schadow’s tenure, the American contingent of students at Düsseldorf was so large that the Academy was regarded as an essential experience for the American art student. Notable students included George Caleb Bingham, Eastman Johnson, William Morris Hunt, as well as the German-born American history painter Emanuel Leutze, who painted, Washington Crossing the Delaware. In 1837, Schadow selected those of his students best qualified to decorate the chapel of St Apollinaris on the Rhine with frescoes. Upon completion, they were acclaimed as the fullest and purest manifestation of religious art of the Düsseldorf school.
In 1843, he published his lecture "The Influence of Christianity on the Visual Arts," and was conferred to the order of knighthood in Prussia, thereby changing his name to Schadow-Godenhaus. He retained his position as director until 1859, when age and failing sight led him to retire. He died in Düsseldorf in 1862, and a monument was erected in the square which still bears his name. Some of his most notable works include Wise and Foolish Virgins (1942), Pieta (1952), and a commission of the Holy Family for the Crown Prince Ludwig of Bavaria.Through his creative artistry and teaching, and even more through the fame of the Düsseldorf school he founded, Schadow had a distinct and far-reaching influence on the religious art of Germany, Europe and throughout the world.