Painter, born at Stuttgart, 29 February, 1762; died at Stuttgart, 14 August, 1852. He studied painting at Paris under Regnault, David, and Gros, and later went to Rome, where he improved his French classical style of painting by the study of Italian art. He appreciated Carsten's freer style with its sterling merit, and adopted the ideas of the Romantic school. While at Rome he became a Catholic. He gained great influence over his contemporaries by his fine perception of the depths of feeling that could be evoked from the subjects he used. To this period of his best work belong a "Child Jesus on the Lamb", "Belisarius at the Porta Pinciana at Rome ", and "Job and His Friends". In 1798 the French drove him from Rome, and he went to Vienna, as he found no place in his native town of Stuttgart, on account of his conversion. At Vienna he illustrated books and made drawings, many of which were etched or engraved by Rahl and Leybold. While there he also painted a "Mater dolorosa", a "Caritas", and "Criton visiting Socrates in Prison ". Wachter was the real founder of the Brotherhood of St. Luke, a society of those painters who soon after established at Rome a more natural and thoughtful school of painting, known as the Nazarenes. Wachter finally went to Stuttgart, where he painted "Cimon in Prison ", "Ulysses and the Sirens", the "Boat of Life", "Andromache standing at the Urn with Hector's Ashes ", the "Greek Muse mourning over the Ruins of Athens ", a "Virgin with St. John Sorrowing at the Grave of Christ", etc. He excelled in treating lyrical and elegaic subjects.

The Catholic Encyclopedia is the most comprehensive resource on Catholic teaching, history, and information ever gathered in all of human history. This easy-to-search online version was originally printed in fifteen hardcopy volumes.

Designed to present its readers with the full body of Catholic teaching, the Encyclopedia contains not only precise statements of what the Church has defined, but also an impartial record of different views of acknowledged authority on all disputed questions, national, political or factional. In the determination of the truth the most recent and acknowledged scientific methods are employed, and the results of the latest research in theology, philosophy, history, apologetics, archaeology, and other sciences are given careful consideration.

No one who is interested in human history, past and present, can ignore the Catholic Church, either as an institution which has been the central figure in the civilized world for nearly two thousand years, decisively affecting its destinies, religious, literary, scientific, social and political, or as an existing power whose influence and activity extend to every part of the globe. In the past century the Church has grown both extensively and intensively among English-speaking peoples. Their living interests demand that they should have the means of informing themselves about this vast institution, which, whether they are Catholics or not, affects their fortunes and their destiny.

Copyright © Catholic Encyclopedia. Robert Appleton Company New York, NY. Volume 1: 1907; Volume 2: 1907; Volume 3: 1908; Volume 4: 1908; Volume 5: 1909; Volume 6: 1909; Volume 7: 1910; Volume 8: 1910; Volume 9: 1910; Volume 10: 1911; Volume 11: - 1911; Volume 12: - 1911; Volume 13: - 1912; Volume 14: 1912; Volume 15: 1912

Catholic Online Catholic Encyclopedia Digital version Compiled and Copyright © Catholic Online