Explore the Context of this artwork, The Temple of Juno in Agrigento.
German enthusiasm for Italian art had peaked at the time the work was produced. In honour of Crown Prince Friedrich Wilhelm's visit to Italy in autumn 1828 an exhibition of Nazarene art was held at the Palazzo Caffarelli in Rome, including the first showing of Friedrich Overbeck's allegorical work Italia und Germania. The Crown Prince favoured these artists, but Friedrich rejected them, writing of one that he must have painted a number of works "through coloured glass ... Perhaps he should try the dangerous idea of painting of painting without glasses, by which objects would appear to him as they do to other honest folk who haven't been in Rome and have healthy eyes". he wrote of Ernst Ferdinand Oehme that he might have got further in art had he "not travelled to Rome" and that he had "greatly improved" since returning from thence, getting clear of the fashionable influence of Joseph Anton Koch who was "no longer a student of nature". He also wrote of a number of similar artists as being "no longer satisfied with our German sun, moon and stars, our rocks, trees and herbs, seas and rivers"His reason for rejecting a trip to Italy is unknown, possibly for fear of betraying German brotherhood, though it was not from lack of funds, since he turned down invitations from his painter friend Frederik Christian Lund in 1816:Thank you for your friendly invitation to Rome, but I must admit my mind never went there. But now that I am leafing through some of H[err] Farber's sketchbooks I have become almost completely different. I can now imagine travelling to Rome and living there. But I couldn't think of returning north without shuddering; in my opinion, that would mean so much: like burying oneself alive. I put up with staying put, without grumbling, if fate wills it that way; but going backwards is contrary to my nature. My whole being is outraged
Jens Christian Jensen argues that Friedrich deliberately and rigorously kept both his radius of travel and his choice of subjects for his pictures narrow. Ironically, Friedrich's friend Johan Christian Clausen Dahl took him to Naples virtually by including a figure of him in his Eruption of Vesuvius, identifiable from a labelled preparatory drawing.
Friedrich was not alone in criticising the Nazarenes, though the Nazarenes themselves maintained that only artists could judge art Johann Christian Reinhart, Bertel Thorvaldsen, Philipp Veit and Joseph Anton Koch wrote counterblasts to the German art critics in the polemic Drei Schreiben aus Rom gegen Kunstschreiberei in Deutschland. However, many artists such as Ludwig Richter did diminish in quality after time in Italy, producing emptier and emptier work the more time they spent there.
Bertel Thorvaldsen Palazzo Caffarelli Jens Christian Jensen Johan Christian Clausen Dahl Ernst Ferdinand Oehme Frederik Christian Lund Italia und Germania Nazarene Ludwig Richter Crown Prince Friedrich Wilhelm Friedrich Overbeck Johann Christian Reinhart Joseph Anton Koch Philipp Veit