Artworks by Annibale Carracci

2024 Author: Leah Sherlock | [email protected]. Last modified: 2023-12-17 05:25

Annibale Carracci (1560-1609) - the famous painter from Bologna, who became a reformer of Italian fine art. Together with his brothers - Agostino and Lodovico founded a school of painting. He adhered to the traditions of antiquity and the Renaissance in his paintings, was engaged in fresco paintings, drawing and engraving.

The beginning of creative activity

The biography of Annibale Carracci originates in Bologna, where he was born in 1560 in the family of an artisan. Growing up and following the example of his two brothers, Annibale decided to devote his life to art: he studied painting with his cousin Lodovico, and engraving with the elder Agostino.

He spent his younger years traveling around Venice, Florence and Parma, while learning various painting techniques, studying the works of Correggio, Titian, Raphael and Michelangelo.

Returning to Bologna in 1582, together with the Carracci brothers, he founded the "Academy of those who entered the true path", which was engaged in teaching students and creating paintings. The students in this private workshop studied, as was customary in Italian painting schools, copying the works of old masters, and also painted from nature. Competitions were organized between them, where it was necessary to answer the questions of teachers with their own drawings, being able to defend their work in front of others.

Participating in common projects, each of the brothers continued to engage in personal work, often they arranged a competition in the number of orders completed per month. Among the Carracci trio, Annibale's works turned out to be the most talented and original; already in his first works, innovative techniques appeared that contradicted outdated pictorial doctrines. He managed to fulfill orders not only from the inhabitants of Bologna, but also from other Italian cities.

First major works

The Bologna period of the artist's life (1582-1594) is characterized by the creation of mythological paintings, landscapes, portraits and altarpieces.

In 1584, the painting of the three halls of the Fava Palace in Bologna was completed - a great work on which the brothers worked for almost two years. This cycle of frescoes, executed in a single plastic key, represents scenes from myths: the adventures of Jason, the stories of Aeneas, the abduction of Europa.

One of the important works of this period is the painting by Annibale Carracci "Dead Christ" (1582), in which the young artist shows mastery of the brush and perspective, the ability to express feelings using very little means. On the topic of mourningChrist the artist will return in later paintings.

Portraits and self-portraits

Among the works of Annibale Carracci, most of them are his self-portraits. The artist painted himself with passion, expecting that his descendants will be able to see the whole evolution of his life path, not only in appearance, but also in emotional changes.

The most famous of them are "Self-portrait of Annibale Carracci with his nephew Antonio" and "Self-portrait on a palette" (1590s) and others.

Portraits the artist always performed in an informal tone, depicting ordinary people in a typical environment of that time. Moreover, there was always something non-standard in his manner, which allowed him to truthfully convey the character of a person, noting his rudeness or inferiority, without bringing him closer to the ideal.

The grotesque portraits "The Bean Eater" and "Young Man with a Monkey", painted in the early 1580s, are interesting, in which the artist truthfully reveals the nature of a person with a certain amount of humor.

Caricature Art

The bright painting "The Butcher's Shop" (1582) A. Carracci among experts is considered the first genre painting, an attempt to interpret the everyday situation with the help of monumental art. It was painted in the “market scene” style popular in Northern Italy in those years, in which the artist emphasizes the dependence of a person’s character on the social environment and profession. Rough real world and common people typeshop workers do not evoke negative feelings, but convey the characters of people.

The paintings of Annibale Carracci and his brother Agostino were the first to use caricature methods of painting, when the character was presented to the viewer along with his flaws, which were specially enlarged to create a funny effect. Even at the beginning of his career, Annibale devoted a lot of time in his works to physiognomic research, trying to introduce comic elements into them.

The creation of the cartoons is attributed to A. Carracci, who supposedly created and is stored in the British Museum a caricature sheet (1595), which depicts male and female faces in a grotesque form.

Frescoes in the Farnese Gallery

One of the most famous works of Annibale Carracci in painting, highly appreciated by professionals, the fresco painting of the Palazzo Farnese Gallery in Rome, where the brothers were invited by the cardinal in 1595. Initially, Annibale received an order to paint an office in the palace, and then, together with Agostino, who arrived in Rome, he is also working on the ceremonial interiors of the palace. This project took almost eight years to complete.

Using the theme of the triumph of love as a program proposal, Annibale painted the duct vault, walls and lunettes. The composition of the frescoes on mythological subjects, inspired by the "Metamorphoses" of the ancient Roman poet Ovid, is meaningful and varied, for which it is deservedly considered the most successful and most significant work.artist. "The Triumph of Bacchus and Ariadne", "Jupiter and Juno" - these works brought world fame to Annibale Carracci, became an example of the creation of decorative ensembles for artists of the 17th-18th centuries.

The decoration of the frescoes was done with stucco elements and figures of Atlanteans and youths supporting the details. The plots and unusual elements are reminiscent of the brilliant creations of Michelangelo in the Sistine Chapel.

However, the artist received a small payment for his work, and, considering himself an offended customer, he leaves for his homeland in Bologna.

Prints and drawings

In addition to painting large-scale frescoes and paintings of mythological and allegorical themes, Annibale Carracci also showed his talent when creating engravings. He chose themes from ancient and biblical subjects, guided by his own taste, in his spare time he was engaged in painting landscapes.

In addition to engravings, he paid attention to drawing, and also carried out various orders. For the aristocrats of Rome, he paints secular paintings of various formats, performs altarpieces for city cathedrals.

Paintings of the Cathedral and Aldobrandini Chapel

In 1600, at the invitation of T. Cerasi, two brilliant artists - Caravaggio and Carracci were invited to work on the murals of the Cathedral of Santa Maria del Popolo. All works are dedicated to the Theotokos and St. Peter and Paul. Annibale was a non-religious person, so he tried to place the scenes and characters in a pleasant landscape, which was not very to the taste of the representatives of the church,as a result, Carracci abandoned further work and entrusted it to his students.

The last major commission left unfinished is the work on the six lunettes of the Aldobrandini Chapel. The artist painted only two paintings, The Burial of Christ (1595) and The Flight into Egypt (1602). In his works, he tried to reproduce the universal picture of the world, painting pictures of ideal nature, against which the figures of saints, a boatman or a shepherd, a grazing flock sound chamber. Such a comparison of the world and specific people gives rise to a sense of the idyllic course of life, as a result of which experts consider him the creator of the classic image of nature.

The Pieta Farnese (1600) was commissioned by the Cardinal's family, in which Carracci turned to the traditional iconographic scheme, managing to convey true feelings in it: Mary's grief over the lying body of Christ.

Last years of life

Beginning in 1603, Annibale Carracci experiences several periods of depression, feeling unwanted and forgotten, he is tormented by rheumatic pains that prevent him from doing what he loves.

Trying to stay away from Rome, the artist moved in 1609 to Naples. On one of his journeys, while trying to cross the Pontic swamps, he is overtaken by illness. The talented painter died all alone before reaching 50.

After his death, through the efforts of his students, the remains of the artist were buried in the Pantheon next to the brilliant maestro Raphael, which Carracci dreamed of during his lifetime.

In his work Annibalesought to achieve the harmony of reality in combination with classical examples of painting. Modern scientists consider him a brilliant artist, who is at the origin of the birth of classicism.