CARRACCI. - Family of Bolognese artists. Faced with the need to overcome Mannerism (v.) in its extreme and debased aspects of exasperated intellectualism and poverty of inspiration, the Carraccis supposed it possible to combine the "manners" of certain great 16th-century painters: variously grading, for example, Raphael's space, Correggio's sfumato, Michelangelo's plastic drawing and Titian's color. Such was to be, in its theoretical intentions, the program of the Accademia dei Desiderosi (and later of the Incamminati) founded in Bologna (1582) by Annibale and Agostino Carracci. Given these premises, the Carraccesque pictorial reform (eclecticism), exalted by the art literature of the 17th century, acquires today a different meaning, in the sense of a critical and cultural attitude implicit in it (C. L. Ragghianti), which nevertheless does not exclude, in numerous concrete cases, the attainment of art. Indeed, the reform of the Carraccis had a vast resonance, equal to that obtained by Caravaggism.
AGOSTINO, b. in Bologna on 15 Aug. 1557, d. in Parma on 22 Feb. 1602, engraver and painter. He is the least gifted and the slowest in his work. He was a pupil of Prospero Fontana, of Passerotti and of his cousin Lodovico. The painting of the Communion of St. Jerome (Bologna, picture gallery) displays Venetian and Correggesque influences. He collaborated with Lodovico on the frescoes of Palazzo Fava and Palazzo Sampieri in Bologna.
ANNIBALE, b. in Bologna on 3 Nov. 1560, d. in Rome on 15 July 1609, pupil of Lodovico, brother of Agostino. Initially he was influenced by Cesi and Passerotti (Baptism of Christ for S. Gregorio); then he studied Correggio in Parma and, in Venice, Titian and Paolo Veronese. But his figurative formation was vast and complex. He collaborated on the frescoes in Palazzo Fava (where he reveals a certain immaturity), in Palazzo Magnani (1592) and Palazzo Sampieri. His art fully asserts itself in the famous decoration of Palazzo Farnese (1595), the beginning of the great Baroque decorative cycles. The principle of Michelangelesque plasticism and of Raphael's spatial rhythm, together with Venetian coloristic taste and Correggio's sfumato, finds here a happy as well as singular interpretation. Among his paintings are remembered: the Deposition (Parma, gallery); the Assumption (Bologna, picture gallery); the Resurrection of Christ (Louvre museum). Conceived by him, but only in part executed directly, are the lunettes of the Doria gallery, in Rome; important for their original interpretation of landscape.
LODOVICO, b. on 21 Apr. 1555 in Bologna, d. 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 involves various Bolognese painters (Passerotti, Tibaldi, etc.) is evident in the Madonna in throne and saints (Bologna, picture gallery). Besides the aforementioned frescoes of the Bolognese palaces, there are remembered the Madonna degli Scalzi and the Conversion of St. Paul (Bologna, picture gallery).
Bibliography12 works
Luigi Grassi