Ludovico (or Lodovico) Carracci (21 April 1555 – 13 November 1619) was an Italian, early-

Baroque The Baroque (, ; ) is a style of architecture, music, dance, painting, sculpture, poetry, and other arts that flourished in Europe from the early 17th century until the 1750s. In the territories of the Spanish and Portuguese empires including ...

painter,

etcher Etching is traditionally the process of using strong acid or mordant to cut into the unprotected parts of a metal surface to create a design in intaglio (incised) in the metal. In modern manufacturing, other chemicals may be used on other types ...

, and printmaker born in

Bologna Bologna (, , ; egl, label= 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 150 different na ...

. 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 Fresco (plural ''frescos'' or ''frescoes'') is a technique of mural painting executed upon freshly laid ("wet") lime plaster. Water is used as the vehicle for the dry-powder pigment to merge with the plaster, and with the setting of the plast ...

art, which was subsumed with formalistic

Mannerism Mannerism, which may also be known as Late Renaissance, is a style in European art that emerged in the later years of the Italian High Renaissance around 1520, spreading by about 1530 and lasting until about the end of the 16th century in Ital ...

. 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 work ...

and traveled to

Florence Florence ( ; it, Firenze ) is a city in Central Italy and the capital city of the Tuscany region. It is the most populated city in Tuscany, with 383,083 inhabitants in 2016, and over 1,520,000 in its metropolitan area.Bilancio demografico ...

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 m ...

, and

Venice Venice ( ; it, Venezia ; vec, Venesia or ) is a city in northeastern Italy and the capital of the Veneto Regions of Italy, region. It is built on a group of 118 small islands that are separated by canals and linked by over 400 ...

, before returning to his hometown. Together with his cousins Annibale and

Agostino Carracci Agostino Carracci (or Caracci) (16 August 1557 – 22 March 1602) was an Italian painter, printmaker, tapestry designer, and art teacher. He was, together with his brother, Annibale Carracci, and cousin, Ludovico Carracci, one of the founders of ...

, 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 Eclectic may refer to: Music * ''Eclectic'' (Eric Johnson and Mike Stern album), 2014 * ''Eclectic'' (Big Country album), 1996 * Eclectic Method, name of an audio-visual remix act * Eclecticism in music, the conscious use of styles alien to th ...

Academy of painting (also called the Accademia degli Incamminati). 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 The Bolognese School of painting, also known as the ''School of Bologna'', flourished between the 16th and 17th centuries in Bologna, which rivalled Florence and Rome as the center of painting in Italy. Its most important representatives i ...

of the late 16th century, which included Albani, Guercino,

Sacchi Sacchi is an Italian surname. Notable people with the surname include: * Ada Sacchi Simonetta (1874–1944), Italian librarian and women's rights activist *Andrea Sacchi (1599–1661), Italian Baroque painter * Antonio Sacchi (died 1694), Italian B ...

Reni Reni may refer to: Places * Reni, Alwar, Alwar district, Rajasthan, India * Reni, Chamoli (also ''Raini''), Chamoli district, Uttarakhand, India, devastated by the 2021 Uttarakhand flood * Reni, Churu, Churu district, Rajasthan, India * Reni, U ...

Lanfranco Lanfranco (active in Modena from c. 1099 to 1110) was an Italian architect. His only known work is the Modena Cathedral. Record of his work there is in the early 13th-century manuscript ''Relatio de innovatione ecclesie sancti Gemeniani'' in th ...

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 shoem ...

. 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 Giacomo Cavedone (also called ''Giacomo Cavedoni'') (1577–1660) was an Italian Baroque painter of the Bolognese School. Life He belonged to the generation of Carracci-inspired or trained painters that included Giovanni Andrea Donducci (Mastell ...

and

Francesco Camullo Francesco, the Italian (and original) version of the personal name " Francis", is the most common given name among males in Italy. Notable persons with that name include: People with the given name Francesco * Francesco I (disambiguation), sev ...

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 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 ''The Funeral of the Virgin Mary'' is a 1605-1609 oil on canvas painting by Ludovico Carracci, now in the Galleria nazionale di Parma. Caracci produced this work, its pendant ''The Apostles at the Virgin's Tomb'' and other frescoes for the chanc ...

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