CARRACCI, ANNIBALE

Carracci, Annibale: translation

(1560-1609)

   Annibale Carracci, his brother Agostino, and cousin Ludovico were responsible for effecting the Carracci Reform. Of the three, Annibale was the one to achieve the greatest recognition for having brought art back to the classicism of the Renaissance masters, particularly Raphael. Early on in his career, Annibale painted genre scenes that depicted common figures in all their dignity, among them the Boy Drinking (c. 1582-1583; Cleveland Museum of Art), the Bean Eater (1583-1584; Rome, Galleria Colonna), and the Butcher Shop (c. 1582; Oxford, Christ Church Picture Gallery), this last thought to visually expound the Carracci's art philosophy. In c. 1583, Annibale received his first public commission, the Crucifixion for the Church of Santa Maria della Carità, Bologna, a clear, sober rendition that conforms to the demands of the Counter-Reformation and Archbishop Gabriele Paleotti regarding the proper representation of sacred subjects. His San Ludovico Altarpiece (c. 1589; Bologna, Pinacoteca Nazionale) he painted for the Church of Santi Ludovico e Alessio and demonstrates the influence of Correggio in the softness of the contours and the swaying pose of St.John the Baptist. In these years, Annibale also executed some mythologies, including the Venus, Satyr, and Two Cupids (c. 1588; Florence, Uffizi) and Venus Adorned by the Graces (1594-1595; Washington, National Gallery). These works show his interest in Venetian art as they both feature voluptuous female nudes rendered in lush colors and bathed by light in the manner of Titian.

   In 1595, Cardinal Odoardo Farnese summoned Annibale to Rome to decorate his recently built palazzo. In c. 1596, Annibale painted the Hercules at the Crossroads (Naples, Museo Nazionale di Capodimonte) to be mounted on the ceiling of the cardinal's study. Then, between c. 1597 and 1600 he frescoed the gallery with scenes depicting the loves of the gods utilizing a quadro riportato technique. Centered on the Farnese ceiling is the Triumph of Bacchus, a scene that would later influence Guido Reni's Aurora (1613) in the Casino Rospigliosi, Rome, and Guercino's ceiling fresco of the same title (1621) in the Casino Ludovisi. In these years, Annibale carried out other commissions for the Farnese, including the Christ in Glory (c. 1597; Florence, Palazzo Pitti) and the Pietà (1599-1600; Naples, Museo Nazionale di Capodimonte). Annibale's Roman works reflect his study of Raphael's paintings in the Stanza della Segnatura (1510-1511) and Michelangelo's Sistine ceiling (1508-1512), both at the Vatican. Their clarity, emphasis on soft pastel tones, and rational compositions clearly derive from the works of these Renaissance masters. The semicircular arrangement of the Christ in Glory stems directly from Raphael's Dispute in the Stanza.

   Annibale was also an accomplished landscapist. In fact, he is one of the artists to bring landscape painting to the realm of high art. In 1603, the artist was occupied with painting landscape lunettes for Cardinal Pietro Aldobrandini in his palace chapel. Of these, the most notable is the Rest on the Flight into Egypt, a classicized landscape composed of alternating areas of land and water balanced by the verticality of the trees. By this time, Annibale had become seriously ill and affected with bouts of depression. He died in 1609 and was buried in the Pantheon in Rome alongside Raphael, a fitting tribute for the man who had been hailed as the one to restore painting from the excesses of Mannerism and to have brought it back to its former Renaissance glory.

CARRACCI, Annibale: translation

The Carracci are credited with restoring painting from the corrupt style of the Mannerists to the heights once achieved by the great Renaissance masters, es­pecially Raphael.* They trained some of the leading Italian baroque painters, like Domenichino and Guido Reni, who then disseminated the Carracci's ideas throughout Italy. As a result, by the late 1620s theirs became the favored style among artists and patrons.

The brothers Agostino and Annibale and their cousin Ludovico were born in Bologna to a tailor and a butcher, respectively. Ludovico trained with the Man­nerist Prospero Fontana, Agostino with Bartolomeo Passerotti of the same school, and Annibale seems to have received his training from Ludovico. In 1582, dissatisfied with the state of painting, the Carracci opened a private acad­emy. Students from other shops began to attend because the Carracci academy offered a more progressive learning environment. Here they were provided with a forum where new ideas could be exchanged. Anatomy lessons were given by a trained doctor, and competitions and prizes were also part of the curriculum. Students were encouraged to draw from nature and participate in pictorial games from which Annibale developed the art of caricature.

In Bologna the Carracci collaborated on three fresco cycles: the Palazzo Fava completed in 1584, the Palazzo Magnani in 1590, and the Palazzo Sampieri in 1594. In these years the Carracci also created some of the most appealing al-tarpieces of the period, like the San Ludovico Altarpiece painted by Annibale around 1589, the Bargellini Madonna of 1588 and the Cento Madonna of 1591 created by Ludovico, and The Last Communion of St. Jerome of around 1592, Agostino's most celebrated work. These altarpieces, with their sense of imme­diacy and figures that appeal to the viewer, visually and emotionally, were well suited for the agenda of the Counter-Reformation.

In 1582 Archbishop Paleotti of Bologna wrote Intorno alle imagini sacre e profanei (On Sacred and Profane Paintings) dealing with appropriate subjects in religious art.Following the prescriptions of the Council of Trent, Paleotti criticized the ambiguity of subject and style in Mannerist paintings and called instead for works that were easily understood by the viewer and inspired piety and devotion. The Carracci were the first in Bologna to meet these demands with their altarpieces.

In 1595 Annibale left for Rome to work for Odoardo Farnese at the Farnese Palace. Agostino and Ludovico remained in Bologna and continued to manage the academy. From 1597 to 1608 Annibale painted the crowning glory of his career, the Farnese Ceiling. In 1597 Agostino joined him in Rome and assisted him on this project. Cephalus and Aurora and Galatea are usually attributed to him. In 1600 Agostino had a falling-out with Annibale and left for Parma to work for Duke Ranuccio Farnese. He died prematurely in 1602. Three years later Annibale suffered a mental breakdown and died in 1609. Ludovico lived until 1619, until which time he remained active as a painter and teacher in Bologna.

The Carracci's students—Reni, Domenichino, Giovanni Lanfranco, Francesco Albani, and Sisto Badalocchio—followed Annibale to Rome and worked as his assistants. After Annibale's death, they developed careers of their own and car­ried on their teachers' legacy. Because of this, the Carracci style remained pop­ular until the end of the seventeenth century and even beyond.

A.W.A. Boschloo, Annibale Carracci in Bologna, 1974.

National Gallery of Art and Metropolitan Museum of Art, The Age ofCorreggio and the

Carracci, 1986. D. Posner, Annibale Carracci, 1971.