Artistic Interpretation of the Sacred History in Julius Schnorr von Carolsfeld’s Biblical Album

This article focuses on the biblical album “Die Bibel in Bildern” by German artist Julius Schnorr von Carolsfeld, which was one of the most popular illustrated editions in the second half of the 19th century. An introduction provides a brief overview outlining the place of illustrated Bibles and engraved biblical albums in the history of European culture from the 15th to the 19th centuries. Julius Schnorr improved his artistic skills among German and Austrian artists in Rome known as the Brotherhood of St. Luke or the Nazarenes. That period had a high importance not only for his personal artistic style but also for the very idea of ​​a biblical album, which accumulated both religious views and educational goals of the Brotherhood. Julius Schnorr’s role in the process, followed by his efforts for preparing images and publishing the album, is reconstructed from his Roman letters to his father and friends as well as a few modern studies on the album itself and the art of the Nazarenes. The main part of the article is devoted to the structure and style of Schnorr Bible, as well as its compositional techniques. They played a key part in artistic interpretation of the Holy Scripture that help to reinforce the expressiveness of the narrative. They also can be divided in two groups defined as theatrical and rhetorical. The theatrical techniques relate to the staging of the depicted event, while the rhetorical ones refer to the genre. Each technique, however, contains a specific set of artistic devices aim to achieve both an emotional response in the viewer and illustrative expressiveness. All of these devices are analyzed on the images from the album. The conclusion provides information on the Schnorr Bible distribution outside Germany and the forms of its adaptation.