CARRACCI. – Family of Bolognese artists. Faced Mannerism (v.), in its extreme and deteriorated aspects of exacerbated intellectualism and inspirational poverty, the C. posited the possibility of combining the “manners” of certain great sixteenth-century painters: variously balancing, for example, Raffaello’s spatial conception, Correggio’s sfumato, Michelangelo’s plastic design, and Tiziano’s colour. Such, in theoretical intention, was to be the programme of the Accademia dei Desiderosi (and subsequently of the Incamminati), founded in Bologna (1582) by Annibale and Agostino C. Given these premises, the Carracci pictorial reform (eclecticism), exalted by seventeenth-century art literature, acquires a different significance today, in the sense of a critical and cultural attitude implicit in it (C. L. Ragghianti), which nevertheless does not exclude, in numerous concrete instances, the attainment of art. Indeed, the reform of the C. had an extraordinarily wide resonance, comparable to that achieved by Caravaggism.
AGOSTINO, born in Bologna on 15 Aug. 1557, died in Parma on 22 Feb. 1602, engraver and painter. He was the least gifted and the slowest in his work. He was a pupil of Prospero Fontana, Passerotti, and his cousin Lodovico. The painting of the Communion of 1. Gerolamo (Bologna, picture gallery) displays Venetian and Correggesque influences. He collaborated with Lodovico on the frescoes of palazzo Fava and palazzo Sampieri in Bologna.
ANNIBALE, born in Bologna on 3 Nov. 1560, died in Rome on 15 July 1609, pupil of Lodovico and brother of Agostino. Initially he was influenced by Cesi and Passerotti (Baptism of Christ for S. Gregorio); he then studied Correggio in Parma and, in Venice, Tiziano and Paolo Veronese. His figurative training, however, was broad and complex. He collaborated on the frescoes in palazzo Fava (where he reveals a certain immaturity), palazzo Magnani (1592), and palazzo Sampieri. His art fully asserted itself in the famous decoration of palazzo Farnese (1595), the beginning of the great Baroque decorative cycles. The principle of Michelangelo’s plasticism and Raffaello’s spatial rhythm, together with Venetian colouristic taste and Correggio’s sfumato, finds here a felicitous as well as singular interpretation. Among his paintings are: the Deposition (Parma, gallery); the Assumption (Bologna, picture gallery); the Resurrection of Christ (Louvre Museum). Conceived by him, but executed directly by him only in part, are the lunettes of the Doria gallery in Rome, which are important for their original interpretation of landscape.
LODOVICO, born on 21 Apr. 1555 in Bologna, died there on 13 Nov. 1619, appears less fertile, but more coherent. He studied Correggio and Parmigianino in Parma, and Tintoretto in Venice. This pictorial erudition, which also involved several Bolognese painters (Passerotti, Tibaldi, etc.), is evident in the Madonna Enthroned with Saints (Bologna, picture gallery). In addition to the aforementioned frescoes of the Bolognese palaces, the Madonna degli Scalzi and the Conversion of 1. Paolo (Bologna, picture gallery) should be mentioned.