Carracci reform

   The Carracci Reform is a term used to denote the efforts of Annibale, Agostino, and Ludovico Carracci to restore painting from what they viewed as the excesses of Mannerism. Their art philosophy developed from their dissatisfaction with the state of art in their native Bologna and their exposure to the works of Raphael, Correggio, and Titian. Raphael's Sistine Madonna (1513; Dresden Gemäldegalerie) was at the time in nearby Piacenza and Correggio's works were in Parma, also at close distance. Agostino is known to have visited Venice in 1582 where he made a number of engravings after the works of Titian and other Venetian masters, and Annibale was there in 1588. From Raphael the Carracci borrowed the elegant classicism of the figures and emphasis on draughtsmanship, from Correggio the softening of forms and tenderness of the figures, and from Titian the vibrant colorism and animated compositions. Thus their style became an eclectic blend of borrowed elements that rejected the esoteric ambiguities of the Mannerist style and embraced the more lucid approach offered by the masters they admired.

   In 1582, the Carracci opened a private academy in Bologna, first called the Accademia dei Desiderosi and later the Accademia degli Incamminati. Their academy soon began to fill with students from other workshops who wanted to benefit from the more progressive learning environment it offered. It provided a forum where students could exchange ideas, receive anatomy lessons from trained doctors, and participate in competitions. Excursions to the Bolognese countryside to sketch the landscape were part of the curriculum, as were pictorial games meant to sharpen students' drawing skills—exercises that led to Annibale's development of caricature. The establishment of the Carracci Academy coincided with the publication of the Bolognese Archbishop Gabriele Paleotti's Intorno alle imagini (1582), which dealt with the proper depiction of religious subjects. Following the prescriptions of the Council of Trent on religious art, Paleotti criticized the ambiguities of the Mannerist style and called instead for coherent scenes that evoked piety and devotion in viewers. As the Carracci shared Paleotti's views on Mannerism, these artists became the first to fulfill the archbishop's demands.

   In 1595, Annibale went to Rome to work for the Farnese and there he created his greatest masterpiece, the Farnese ceiling (c. 1597-1600; Rome, Palazzo Farnese), a work inspired by Michelangelo's Sistine ceiling frescoes (1508-1512; Vatican). Members of the Carracci School followed him, worked as his assistants, and dispersed the Carracci classicist ideology so effectively that, by the 1620s, it became the most popular style in art. The clarity and striking visual appeal of the scenes on the Farnese ceiling won Annibale the classification of restorer of painting to its former Renaissance glory. Not by coincidence, when he died in 1609, he was buried in the Pantheon alongside Raphael.

   See also Butcher shop.