Ludovico (or Lodovico) Carracci (21 April 1555 – 13 November 1619) was an Italian, early-
Baroque painter,
etcher, and printmaker born in
Bologna
Bologna (, , ; egl, label=Emilian language, Emilian, Bulåggna ; lat, Bononia) is the capital and largest city of the Emilia-Romagna region in Northern Italy. It is the seventh most populous city in Italy with about 400,000 inhabitants and 1 ...
. His works are characterized by a strong mood invoked by broad gestures and flickering light that create spiritual emotion and are credited with reinvigorating Italian art, especially
fresco art, which was subsumed with formalistic
Mannerism. He died in Bologna in 1619.
Biography
Ludovico apprenticed under
Prospero Fontana
Prospero Fontana (1512–1597) was a Bolognese painter of late Renaissance and Mannerist art. He is perhaps best known for his frescoes and architectural detailing. The speed in which he completed paintings earned him commissions where he wor ...
in
Bologna
Bologna (, , ; egl, label=Emilian language, Emilian, Bulåggna ; lat, Bononia) is the capital and largest city of the Emilia-Romagna region in Northern Italy. It is the seventh most populous city in Italy with about 400,000 inhabitants and 1 ...
and traveled to
Florence
Florence ( ; it, Firenze ) is a city in Central Italy and the capital city of the Tuscany Regions of Italy, region. It is the most populated city in Tuscany, with 383,083 inhabitants in 2016, and over 1,520,000 in its metropolitan area.Bilan ...
,
Parma
Parma (; egl, Pärma, ) is a city in the northern Italian region of Emilia-Romagna known for its architecture, music, art, prosciutto (ham), cheese and surrounding countryside. With a population of 198,292 inhabitants, Parma is the second mos ...
, and
Venice
Venice ( ; it, Venezia ; vec, Venesia or ) is a city in northeastern Italy and the capital of the Veneto region. It is built on a group of 118 small islands that are separated by canals and linked by over 400 bridges. The isla ...
, before returning to his hometown. Together with his cousins
Annibale and
Agostino Carracci, Ludovico worked in Bologna on the fresco cycles depicting Histories of ''Jason and Medea'' (1584) in Palazzo Fava, and the ''Histories of Romulus and Remus'' (1590-1592) for the
Palazzo Magnani. Their individual contributions to these works are unclear, although Annibale, the younger than Ludovico by 5 years had gained fame as the best of the three. This led to Annibale's famed commission of the ''
Loves of the Gods'' in the Palazzo Farnese in Rome. Agostino joined Annibale there briefly.
While Ludovico remained in Bologna, this does not mean that he was any less influential, the biography of Lanzi states that around 1585, Ludovico and his cousins had founded the so-called
Eclectic Academy of painting (also called the
Accademia degli Incamminati
The Accademia degli Incamminati (Italian for "Academy of Those who are Making Progress" or "Academy of the Journeying") was one of the first art academies in Italy, founded in 1582 in Bologna.
It was founded as the Accademia dei Desiderosi ("Acad ...
). More recent conjectures are that there was no established Academy with curriculum, but that Ludovico tutored many in his studio.
This studio however propelled a number of Emilian artists to pre-eminence in Rome and elsewhere, and singularly helped encourage the so-called
Bolognese School of the late 16th century, which included
Albani,
Guercino
Giovanni Francesco Barbieri (February 8, 1591 – December 22, 1666),Miller, 1964 better known as Guercino, or il Guercino , was an Italian Baroque painter and draftsman from Cento in the Emilia region, who was active in Rome and Bologna. The vi ...
,
Sacchi,
Reni,
Lanfranco and
Domenichino
Domenico Zampieri (, ; October 21, 1581 – April 6, 1641), known by the diminutive Domenichino (, ) after his shortness, was an Italian Baroque painter of the Bolognese School of painters.
Life
Domenichino was born in Bologna, son of a sho ...
. The Carracci had their apprentices draw studies focused on observation of nature and natural poses, and use a bold scale in drawing figures. Two of Ludovico's main pupils were
Giacomo Cavedone and
Francesco Camullo.
Restitution
In 2009 Carracci's St. Jerome (c. 1595) was restituted to the heirs of Dr.
Max Stern, a German Jewish art dealer persecuted and looted by the
Nazis
Nazism ( ; german: Nazismus), the common name in English for National Socialism (german: Nationalsozialismus, ), is the far-right totalitarian political ideology and practices associated with Adolf Hitler and the Nazi Party (NSDAP) in N ...
File:Ludovico Carracci The Lamentation.jpg, ''Lamentation of Christ
The Lamentation of Christ is a very common subject in Christian art from the High Middle Ages to the Baroque. After Jesus was crucified, his body was removed from the cross and his friends mourned over his body. This event has been depicted by m ...
'' (ca. 1582).
File:Lud. Carracci La Carraccina.jpg, Madonna and Child with St Francis of Assisi (1591) – known as "La Carraccina" due to the admiration of the young Guercino
Giovanni Francesco Barbieri (February 8, 1591 – December 22, 1666),Miller, 1964 better known as Guercino, or il Guercino , was an Italian Baroque painter and draftsman from Cento in the Emilia region, who was active in Rome and Bologna. The vi ...
File:1607 Carracci Madonna mit Kind und Heiligen anagoria.JPG, ''Madonna and Child with Saints''
File:Ludovico Carracci - Annunciation - Google Art Project.jpg, ''Annunciation''
File:Transfiguration by Lodovico Carracci.jpg, ''Transfiguration'' by Lodovico Carracci
File:Abraham-And-The-Three-Angels.jpg, ''Abraham and the Three Angels''
File:Lodovico Carracci (Italian - St. Sebastian Thrown into the Cloaca Maxima - Google Art Project.jpg, ''Saint Sebastian Thrown into the Cloaca Maxima
''Saint Sebastian Thrown into the Cloaca Maxima'' is a 1612 oil on canvas painting by Ludovico Carracci, now in the Getty Museum in Los Angeles, which acquired it in 1971. A preparatory drawing survives in the Louvre.
It was commissioned by Maff ...
''
File:Ludovico_Carracci,_I_funerali_della_Vergine.jpg, '' The Funeral of the Virgin Mary''
References
Sources
* Babette Bohn, ''Ludovico Carracci and the Art of Drawing'' Brepols 2004
* Allessandro Brogi, ''Ludovico Carracci'' Bologna 2001
* Andrea Emiliani (ed.), '' Ludovico Carracci'' exh. cat. Bologna-FortWorth 1994 (with Essay and catalogue by Gail Feigenbaum)
External links
''Orazio and Artemisia Gentileschi'' a fully digitized exhibition catalog from The Metropolitan Museum of Art Libraries, which contains material on Ludovico Carracci (see index)
Whitfield Fine Art
{{DEFAULTSORT:Carracci, Ludovico
1555 births
1619 deaths
Italian etchers
16th-century Italian painters
Italian male painters
17th-century Italian painters
Painters from Bologna
Italian Baroque painters
Italian Mannerist painters
Catholic painters
Catholic etchers