Julius Schnorr von Carolsfeld

Julius Schnorr von Carolsfeld (26 March 1794 – 24 May 1872) was a German painter, chiefly of Biblical subjects. As a young man he associated with the painters of the Nazarene movement who revived the florid Renaissance style in religious art. He is remembered for his extensive Picture Bible, and his designs for stained glass windows in cathedrals.

Biography Schnorr was born in Leipzig, the son of Veit Hanns Schnorr von Carolsfeld (1764–1841), a draughtsman, engraver, and painter, from whom he received his initial artistic education, his earliest known works being copies of the Neoclassical drawings of John Flaxman. In 1811 he entered the Vienna Academy, from which Johann Friedrich Overbeck and others who rebelled against the old conventional style had been expelled about a year before. There he studied under Friedrich Heinrich Füger, and became friends with Joseph Anton Koch and Heinrich Olivier, both of whom would have an important influence on his style.

Schnorr married Maria Heller, the stepdaughter of Ferdinand Olivier, in 1827.

In 1846 Schnorr moved to Dresden to become a professor at the academy there. The next year he was appointed director of the Gemäldegalerie.

Art Schnorr's third period was marked by his biblical illustrations. He was a Lutheran, and took a broad and unsectarian view. His Picture Bible was published in Leipzig in 30 parts in 1852–60, and an English edition followed in 1861. This Munich glass provoked controversy: medievalists objected to its lack of lustre, and stigmatized the windows as mere coloured blinds and picture transparencies. The opposing party, however, claimed for these modern revivals "the union of the severe and excellent drawing of early Florentine oil-paintings with the colouring and arrangement of the glass-paintings of the latter half of the 16th century." Four windows by Schnorr were installed at St Paul's: three in the chancel (removed in 1888) and one at the west end (destroyed in 1941). Most of the Munich glass at Glasgow was removed during the 20th century.