ABSTRACT
Mark Phillips and Mitchell Frank explore the nineteenth-century revival of fresco painting in Germany and Britain through the concept of historical distance. During the first half of the century, the rage for fresco had captured the hearts of artists and their patrons. In German-speaking nations and Britain, fresco was championed for its primitive style, for its ability to challenge the modern academy, and as a vehicle for national values. In the German context, a group of painters, now known as the Nazarenes, conceived of fresco painting as a means for national identity as well as spiritual and religious renewal. In Britain, debates about fresco were more limited in that they involved an attempt to solve a specific problem, how to decorate the new Parliament. Beginning in 1841 with the Select Committee on the Fine Arts, an influential part of the artistic establishment became preoccupied with the virtues of fresco. In both national contexts, fresco offered a range of possibilities which can be understood in terms of distances: it proclaimed its universality but was sensitive to local needs; it was the conveyor of ideas but affected the hearts of viewers; it made reference to a distant past but was tied materially to the present. Historical distances thus played an important role in the different ways that German and British artists and writers tried to reconcile the need to claim something close by with larger ideological appeals to nationhood.
