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 followed Overbeck and the other founders of the Nazarene movement to Rome in 1815. This school of religious and romantic art tended to reject modern styles, attempting to revert to and revive the principles and practice of earlier periods.
At the beginning of his time in Rome, Schnorr was particularly influenced by his close study of fifteenth-century Italian painting, especially the works of Fra Angelico. Soon however, he abandoned this refined simplicity, and began to look towards more elaborate High Renaissance models.
From its outset the Nazarene movement made an effort to recover fresco painting and monumental art, and Schnorr had an opportunity to demonstrate his powers when commissioned to decorate the entrance hall of the Villa Massimo near the Lateran with frescoes illustrating the works of Ariosto. Other cycles in the house were begun by Peter von Cornelius and Johann Friedrich Overbeck.
Schnorr married Maria Heller, the stepdaughter of Ferdinand Olivier, in 1827. Their son Ludwig Schnorr von Carolsfeld was an operatic tenor who died at the age of 29. He had just begun to gain renown as the first to sing Wagner's Tristan. Schnorr's brother, Ludwig Ferdinand [de] (1788–1853) was also a painter. Schnorr died in Munich in 1872.
