Widely regarded as one of the greatest draughtsmen of all time, Annibale Carracci (1560-1609) is celebrated for his naturalism. Born in a time when the elegant deformations and exaggerations of Italian mannerism were still in vogue, Carracci turned instead to nature as his principal inspiration. Much attuned to the everyday world around him, he took as much interest in studying a man bowling, a butcher weighing a piece of meat, or a street entertainer with his monkey as he did in the preparatory studies for his grand mythological and religious paintings. The fruit of this intensive study is abundantly evident in his magnificent drawings of the human figure - from his early works in Bologna to those made in preparation for his greatest commission, the decoration of the Farnese Gallery in Rome. This stunning publication brings together a plethora of Carracci's masterful drawings to provide a unique insight into the technique and skill of one of the premier artists of his time.

Helping to delight in the drawings of Caravaggio, Carracci, Michelangelo, Urbino, Tavarone, Vasari, Veronese, and others, this book looks at this key period in the development of drawing in Europe.

The primary goal of Ludovico Carracci and the Art of Drawing is to provide a ground-breaking model for a new kind of book on Italian drawings. In addition to covering the traditional scholarly terrain of chronology, style, and connoisseurship, this book utilizes up-to-date art historical methods, including considerations of the historical context of Bologna, its impact on Ludovico's art, and a new portrayal of the role of women and women artists in the city. Bologna is perhaps the last great artistic capital in Europe that...still offers the specialist the possibility for ground breaking studies. This quotation from a recent exhibition at the Metropolitan Museum testifies to the rich possibilities for research in this field. In 1983, Sydney Freedberg wrote a book on the three pivotal innovators in Italian painting at the turn of the seventeenth century: Caravaggio, Annibale Carracci, and the latter's cousin Ludovico Carracci (1555-1619). The dramatic intensity of Ludovico's paintings exerted a seminal influence on the direction of Italian Baroque painting. His highly individual renditions of his subjects make him one of the great interpreters of Italian art. Working in Bologna, the second city of the papal states, during the period of the Counter Reformation, Ludovico was well positioned to reshape religious painting during a period that demanded change. Ludovico was a prolific draftsman who produced over 300 extant drawings. His drawings offer the key to his artistic personality, because he conceived his original subjects and planned his dramatic compositions in these sheets. Like most Italian artists of the early modern period, Ludovico developed his ideas in drawings and began painting only after his conceptions had been finalized. Thus his drawings reveal how he thought, how his ideas changed, and which features of a composition were most important or challenging to his creative imagination. Such drawings as these have tremendous appeal to modern audiences, who are attracted by the excitement of watching the creative process in progress, rather than seeing only the painting that represents the end of that process. The Carracci have always been considered some of the most important draftsmen in Italian art, for their revival of drawing the human figure from life in the course of designing paintings. But Ludovico's drawings were not only preparatory studies for pictures. He was also an innovator in developing finished compositional drawings that were produced as works of art in their own right, made for sale to a new audience of private collectors in Bologna. This book will be indispensable for university libraries, museum libraries, and the private libraries of all scholars, dealers, and collectors with a serious interest in Italian art. As a study of a major artist that breaks new methodological ground, the book will bring together fresh insights on the artist and his culture with a useful compendium of illustrations and will provide a model for future studies of draftsmen from the early modern period.

Annibale Carracci (1560-1609) fu una delle figure chiave (1560-1609) nello sviluppo dell'arte barocca italiana, e tuttavia la sua arte può sembrare problematica per diversi aspetti. Questo volume analizza la sua carriera dagli esordi a Bologna fino alle opere successive a Roma, il cui apice è raggiunto con il suo capolavoro, gli splendidi affreschi della Galleria Farnese. Il volume indaga inoltre il linguaggio religioso fortemente espressivo che sviluppò nelle pale d'altare, adeguate espressioni dei princìpi della Contro-Riforma, e i suoi importanti contributi all'evoluzione del paesaggio classico. Annotation Supplied by Informazioni Editoriali

This volume describes and reproduces 379 drawings by Italian artists of the seventeenth century in The Metropolitan Museum of Art. The most brilliant draughtsmen of this period--Annibale Carracci, G.B. Castiglione, Pietro da Cortona, Guercino, Carlo Maratti, and Salvator Rosa--are well represented in the Museum's collection, and the book offers a survey of Italian baroque draughtsmanship. It includes innovative work by Carracci, as well as drawings by such late baroque masters as Sebastiano Ricci and Francesco Solimena. Four hundred five illustrations are contained in this inventory. Entries for the drawings provide essential bibliographical references, provenance, and a discussion of the purpose of the drawing when known. -- Inside jacket flap.