Carracci
Carracci.
Family of Bolognese painters, the brothers Agostino (1557-1602) and Annibale
(1560-1609) and their cousin Ludovico (1555-1619), who were prominent figures
at the end of the 16th century in the movement against the prevailing Mannerist
artificiality of Italian painting.
They
worked together early in their careers, and it is not easy to distinguish their
shares in, for example, the cycle of frescos in the Palazzo Fava in Bologna
(c.1583-84). In the early 1580s they opened a private teaching academy, which
soon became a center for progressive art. It was originally called the
Accademia dei Desiderosi (`Desiderosi' meaning `desirous of fame and
learning'), but later changed its name to Academia degli Incamminati (Academy
of the Progressives). In their teaching they laid special emphasis on drawing
from the life (all three were outstanding graphic artists) and clear draughtsmanship
became a quality particularly associated with artists of the Bolognese School,
notably Domenichino and Reni, two of the leading members of the following
generation who trained with the Carracci.
They
continued working in close relationship until 1595, when Annibale, who was by
far the greatest artist of the family, was called to Rome by Cardinal Odoardo
Farnese to carry out his masterpiece, the decoration of the Farnese Gallery in
the cardinal's family palace. He first decorated a small room called the
Camerino with stories of Hercules, and in 1597 undertook the ceiling of the
larger gallery, where the theme was The Loves of the Gods, or, as Bellori
described it, `human love governed by Celestial love'. Although the ceiling is
rich in the interplay of various illusionistic elements, it retains
fundamentally the self-contained and unambiguous character of High Renaissance
decoration, drawing inspiration from Michelangelo's Sistine Ceiling and
Raphael's frescos in the Vatican Loggie and the Farnesina. The full
untrammelled stream of Baroque illusionism was still to come in the work of
Cortona and Lanfranco, but Annibale's decoration was one of the foundations of
their style. Throughout the 17th and 18th centuries the Farnese Ceiling was
ranked alongside the Sistine Ceiling and Raphael's frescos in the Vatican
Stanze as one of the supreme masterpieces of painting. It was enormously
influential, not only as a pattern book of heroic figure design, but also as a
model of technical procedure; Annibale made hundreds of drawings for the
ceiling, and until the age of Romanticism such elaborate preparatory work
became accepted as a fundamental part of composing any ambitious history
painting. In this sense, Annibale exercised a more profound influence than his
great contemporary Caravaggio, for the latter never worked in fresco, which was
still regarded as the greatest test of a painter's ability and the most
suitable vehicle for painting in the Grand Manner.
Annibale's
other works in Rome also had great significance in the history of painting.
Pictures such as Domine, Quo Vadis? (National Gallery, London, c.1602) reveal a
striking economy in figure composition and a force and precision of gesture
that had a profound influence on Poussin and through him on the whole language
of gesture in painting. He developed landscape painting along similar lines,
and is regarded as the father of ideal landscape, in which he was followed by
Domenichino (his favorite pupil), Claude, and Poussin. The Flight into Egypt
(Doria Gallery, Rome, c.1604) is Annibale's masterpiece in this genre. In his
last years Annibale was overcome by melancholia and gave up painting almost
entirely after 1606. When he died he was buried accordingly to his wished near
Raphael in the Pantheon. It is a measure of his achievement that artists as
great and diverse as Bernini, Poussin and Rubens found so much to admire and
praise in his work. Annibale's art also had a less formal side that comes out
in his caricatures (he is generally credited with inventing the form) and in
his early genre paintings, which are remarkable for their lively observation
and free handling (The Butcher's Shop, Christ Church, Oxford).
Agostino
assisted Annibale in the Farnese Gallery from 1597 to 1600, but he was
important mainly as a teacher and engraver. His systematic anatomical studies
were engraved after his death and were used for nearly two centuries as
teaching aids. He spent the last two years in Parma, where he did his own
`Farnese Ceiling', decorating a ceiling in the Palazzo del Giardino with
mythological scenes for Duke Ranuccio Farnese. It shows a meticulous but
somewhat spiritless version of his brother's lively Classicism.
Ludovico
left Bologna only for brief periods and directed the Carracci academy by
himself after his cousins had gone to Rome. His work is unever and highly
personal. Painterly and expressive considerations always outweigh those of
stability and calm Classicism in his work, and at its best there is a
passionate and poetic quality indicative of his preference for Tintoretto and
Jacopo Bassano. His most fruitful period was 1585-95, but near the end of his
career he still produced remarkable paintings of an almost Expressionist force,
such as the Christ Crucified above Figures in Limbo (Sta Francesco Romana,
Ferrara, 1614).
The
Caracci fell from grace in the 19th century along with all the other Bolognese
painters, who were one of Ruskin's pet hates and whom he considered (1847) had
`no single virtue, no color, no drawing, no character, no history, no thought'.
They were saddled with the label `eclectic' and thought to be ponderous and
lacking in originality. Their full rehabilitation had to wait until the second
half of the 20th century (the great Carracci exhibition held in Bologna in 1956
was a notable event), but Annibale has now regained his place as one of the
giants of Italian painting.
Agostino's
illegitimate son Antonio (1589?-1618) was the only offspring of the three
Carracci. He had a considerable reputation as an artist in his day, but after
his early death was virtually forgotten, and it is only recently that his work
has been reconsidered.
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