When the Covington church decorators - under the guidance and supervision of Br. Cosmas Wolf - built new altars, they used the Gothic style: Pointed arches, clustered columns, pinnacles, turrets, and elaborate tracery were an integral part of their finished products. The altars' superstructures were almost always tripartite and contained the altar- paintings that were designed to fit seamlessly into the compartments outlined by the pointed arches. These paintings were on canvas and stretchers and could easily be inserted or removed. The central high altar demanded the largest painting. The two side-altars, traditionally dedicated to the Virgin Mary on the north side and to St. Joseph on the south side of the apse, usually contained only one painting each. Without exception, the Covington-produced wooden altars were painted white, and the majority of the altar-paintings featured a gold leaf background. White and gold had been the dominant color scheme of Baroque churches in southern Germany. It is the opinion of several architectural historians that the only concession to the Bavarian Baroque style by German-American church artists was the white and gold color scheme of high altars.[5] 

     Cosmas Wolf had studied in Munich. His two leading church painters at the Covington Altar Stock Building Company, Wilhelm Lamprecht and Johann Schmitt, had lived and studied there as well. Both worked for Cosmas Wolf during his ten-year presence in Covington, and both continued their church decorations after the Benedictine lay-brother had returned to St Vincent.

     Wilhelm Lamprecht and Johann Schmitt left large numbers of paintings in churches, monasteries, convents, and chapels. Many of their works are signed and dated, but others cannot be accurately documented. The artistic quality of their works fluctuates, but no one can dispute their religious fervor, dedication, and knowledge of the history of Christian art. They also kept abreast of current ecclesiastical events in Germany and in the U.S.

    The broad outlines of the lives of Johann Schmitt and Wilhelm Lamprecht can be traced with varying degrees of accuracy. For Schmitt, a 1947 biography by a Franciscan priest, provides greater details: He was born November 17, 1825, at Heinstadt in Baden and "came at an early age in contact with the foremost artists of Munich. Without any academic training, he labored zealously for the development of those latent talents which became manifest in his later works of art."[6]  It is difficult to discern what contacts Johann Schmitt established in Munich and how they advanced his artistic talents. If he was not a student at the Munich Academy of Art, we must assume that his knowledge of contemporary painting in the Bavarian capital was gained through visits to museums and churches. The Neue Pinakothek, where King Ludwig's collection of modern paintings could be viewed, was a treasure house of art created after 1800. The frescoes of Peter Cornelius and other contemporary muralists proclaimed the Nazarene message to the public and provided inspiration for young painters in the Bavarian capital. Indeed, Schmitt's works in North America demonstrate a surprising likeness to the style of the Nazarenes.

    After his emigration to the United States in 1848, Johann Schmitt settled in Melrose in Westchester County, New York. It is not known whether the painter had been a participant in the 1848 revolutionary movement and had to leave Germany after its failure. Schmitt's biographer does not provide such information. Without citing any sources, he states that Schmitt "pursued several years of earnest study in New York before his first commission to paint murals for the church of St. Alphonsus in New York City. They were so popular that he secured other contracts, and his rise to fame was phenomenal."[7] It is puzzling that despite his 'fame', Schmitt had placed ads in the weekly Cincinnati Catholic newspaper Der Wahrheitsfreund to offer his services to the clergy. On November 21, 1861, the following advertisement appeared in the paper:

"Maler Johann Schmitt in Melrose bei New York City, empfehlt sich der Hochwuerdigen Geistlichkeit zur  Anfertigung von kirchlichen Gemaelden, im aecht  kirchlichen Styl, prompt und billig".

(The painter Johann Schmitt in Melrose near New York City, offers his services to the esteemed clergy for the creation of church paintings in authentic religious style, promptly and inexpensively.)

   This ad regularly appeared during the early months of 1862. It is likely that the painter Schmitt's request for commissions from the Catholic clergy caught the eye of Cosmas Wolf after he had arrived in Covington from St. Vincent in 1862 and that he enticed the painter to join him in Kentucky. We know that Schmitt participated in the very first church- decorating assignment the Altar Stock Building Company undertook in the fall of 1862 at the church of St. Francis Seraph in Cincinnati.

   After Schmitt joined the Covington Altar Building Stock Company, he became a devout member of the Third Order of St. Francis and a lifelong supporter of the Cincinnati Society of Christian Art.[8] He had a home on Greenup Street in Covington, where he died in June of 1898. His first wife preceded him in death in 1891. His second wife had been widowed twice and brought her six children to their union. One of them, Frank Meyer, worked as Schmitt's assistant during the last decade of the painter's life. Johann Schmitt is buried in the cemetery of the Mother of God at Latonia, Kentucky.[9] His career included the painting of hundreds of altarpieces, easel paintings, and murals at mission churches, chapels, convents, and monasteries throughout North America.

  The list of German-Americans, working under the direction of Brother Cosmas Wolf at the Covington Altar Building Stock Company in the early 1860's, included Brother Claude Haeusler, O.S.B., Harry Gehring, William Grawe, Paul Gerstrein, Philip Lohr, Georg Roese, Louis Steiner, and the following, whose first names do not appear in any listing: Becker, Dressman, Ewald, Geisler, Liebler, Meyer, Schroepfer, Wehrle, and Wessel.[10] A number of these artists are also listed as members of the Cincinnati-based Society of Christian Art that was founded by the painter Wilhelm Lamprecht in 1867 after his arrival in the Queen City. He acted as the Society's president, but it is not known how long the organization's activities persisted. Research in nineteenth century issues of Der Wahrheitsfreund uncovers brief notices of the Society's meetings, where talks and presentations on problems of artistic techniques took place. Beside Wilhelm Lamprecht and Johann Schmitt, as well as Brothers Cosmas and Claude, other Society members included Paul Gerstrein, E, Humbrecht, M.Geiger, W.Thien, H. Becker, and A. Kloser. The Schroeder brothers, a team of German-American sculptors and altar builders, who had studied at the Munich Royal Academy of Art, and were active in Cincinnati into the twentieth century, also held membership in the Society.[11] It was no coincidence that a Verein fuer Christliche Kunst existed in Munich in the 1840's and 1850's and that the Cornelius pupil Johann von Schraudolph was its founder and director. Von Schraudolph taught at the Munich Royal Academy of Art between 1849 and 1878. He is best known for his frescoes at St. Boniface Basilica in Munich and for an elaborate set of murals at the Speyer Dom. He was also Wilhelm Lamprecht's teacher of fresco painting at the Munich Academy. When Lamprecht in 1869 arranged for his young Covington apprentice Frank Duveneck to study religious painting in the Bavarian capitol, he urged Frank to enroll in Johann von Schraudolph's classes.[12] It is truly fascinating to untangle the web of such German-American relations between nineteenth century artists in Munich and the U.S., and to discover how they influenced artistic developments.