Guercino: Master Drawings E-Book

Blagoy Kiroff

• Herausgeber: Blagoy Kiroff
• Kategorie: Geisteswissenschaft
• Sprache: Englisch

Veröffentlichungsjahr: 2015

Beschreibung

Giovanni Francesco Barbieri (1591 – 1666), best known as Guercino, or Il Guercino, was an Italian Baroque painter and draftsman from the region of Emilia, and active in Rome and Bologna. The vigorous naturalism of his early manner is in contrast to the classical equilibrium of his later works. His many drawings are noted for their luminosity and lively style. Guercino was remarkable for the extreme rapidity of his executions: he completed no fewer than 106 large altarpieces for churches, and his other paintings amount to about 144. He was also a prolific draftsman. His production includes many drawings, usually in ink, washed ink, or red chalk. Most of them were made as preparatory studies for his paintings, but he also drew landscapes, genre subjects, and caricatures for his own enjoyment. Guercino's drawings are known for their fluent style in which "rapid, calligraphic pen strokes combined with dots, dashes, and parallel hatching lines describe the forms".

Leseprobe

Guercino:

Master Drawings

By Blagoy Kiroff

––––––––

First Edition

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Guercino: Master Drawings

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Copyright © 2015 Blagoy Kiroff

Table of Contents

Title Page

Copyright Page

Foreword

Drawings and Prints

Foreword

Giovanni Francesco Barbieri (1591 – 1666), best known as Guercino, or Il Guercino, was an Italian Baroque painter and draftsman from the region of Emilia, and active in Rome and Bologna. The vigorous naturalism of his early manner is in contrast to the classical equilibrium of his later works. His many drawings are noted for their luminosity and lively style.

Guercino was remarkable for the extreme rapidity of his executions: he completed no fewer than 106 large altarpieces for churches, and his other paintings amount to about 144. He was also a prolific draftsman. His production includes many drawings, usually in ink, washed ink, or red chalk. Most of them were made as preparatory studies for his paintings, but he also drew landscapes, genre subjects, and caricatures for his own enjoyment. Guercino's drawings are known for their fluent style in which "rapid, calligraphic pen strokes combined with dots, dashes, and parallel hatching lines describe the forms".

He was born in Cento, a village between Bologna and Ferrara. At an early age he acquired the nickname Guercino (Italian for 'squinter') because he was cross-eyed. Mainly self-taught, at the age of 16, he worked as apprentice in the shop of Benedetto Gennari, a painter of the Bolognese School. By 1615, he moved to Bologna, where his work was praised by Ludovico Carracci. Guercino painted two large canvases, Elijah Fed by Ravens and Samson Seized by Philistines, for Cardinal Serra, a Papal Legate to Ferrara. These paintings have a stark naturalist Caravaggesque style, although it is unlikely that Guercino saw any of the Roman Caravaggios first-hand.

The Arcadian Shepherds (Et in Arcadia ego) was painted in 1618 at the same time of The Flaying of Marsyas by Apollo in Palazzo Pitti. Its dramatic composition is typical of Guercino's early works, which are often tumultuous. He often claimed that his early style was influenced by a canvas of Annibale Carracci in Cento. Some of his later works are closer to the style of his contemporary Guido Reni, and are painted with more lightness and clearness.

He was recommended by Marchese Enzo Bentivoglio to the Bolognese Ludovisi Pope, Pope Gregory XV. The years he spent in Rome, 1621–23, were very productive. From this period are his frescoes Aurora at the casino of the Villa Ludovisi, the ceiling in San Crisogono (1622) of San Chrysogonus in Glory, the portrait of Pope Gregory XV, and The Burial of Saint Petronilla or St. Petronilla Altarpiece for the Vatican, which is considered his masterpiece. After the death of Gregory XV, Guercino returned to his hometown. In 1626, he began his frescoes in the Duomo of Piacenza. The details of his career after 1629 are well documented in the account book, the Libro dei Conti di Casa Barbieri, that Guercino and his brother Paolo Antonio Barbieri kept updated, and which has been preserved. Between 1618 and 1631, Giovanni Battista Pasqualini produced 67 engravings that document the early production of Guercino, which is not included in the Libro dei Conti. In 1642, following the death of Guido Reni, Guercino moved his busy workshop to Bologna and become the city's principal painter.

Guercino continued to paint and teach until his death in 1666.

Drawings and Prints

St Paul the Hermit

Red chalk, a strip added to the lower edge

Detail

Detail

Detail

The Penitent Saint Jerome

Red chalk, within black chalk framing lines

Detail

Detail

Detail

Diana Burning the Instruments of Love

Red chalk

Detail

Detail