The Inventive Genius of Annibale Carracci
Diane De Grazia   page 3 of 6

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There are no real portraits that can be ascribed to Annibale Carracci, if portraits can be assumed to relay more than objective observation. In the 1580s a number of drawn "portrait" busts survive. Several suggest a sympathetic perception of his subject, such as the Head of a Boy (cat. 15) and the Semi-Nude Youth (cat. 11), but they are actually very accurate renderings of a wide-eyed child whose mood is, in reality, imperceptible, and a deformed youth who merely stares at the artist who draws him. It is the viewer, not the artist, who reads something into the characters' thoughts. In fact, the handwritten inscription Non so se Dio m'aiuta on the drawing of the Semi-Nude Youth may not be by the artist but an addition by another hand. The magnificently observed portrait of the lutenist Mascheroni (cat. 25) is a mastery of observed light and shade. The face, with its intense stare, fills the sheet, and the sitter is thus perceived by the viewer as having a strong character. What can instead be construed as a detachment from his subjects may suggest that Annibale did not believe that accurate observation reflected mood and may have led to his later adoption of affetti, or demonstrative gestures, to describe inner emotion.14

Accurate observation of the natural world included drawings of the Emilian countryside that would be used as references when creating painted compositions. Unlike his careful and detailed rendering of the human figure, Annibale's landscape drawings tend to be quick sketches that evoke the shape of the trees, branches, mountains, roads, and rivers. Because of the affinity with his brother Agostino's landscape style, and the influence of his landscape method on followers and imitators, the attribution of these sheets continues to be controversial.15 In spite of Annibale having painted the first wholly independent landscape paintings in the history of western painting (another important invention for the artist), it appears that for him landscape was meant to support the story being told.16 Biographers related that the Carracci drew landscapes out-of-doors for pleasure,17 but Annibale used his observations to support a rationally conceived landscape painting style in which overlapping areas progressed in a zigzag fashion into depth, with figures placed in these receding zones to indicate diminishing spatial perspective. Landscape and architecture supported his main iconographical interest: the observation of the human figure in all its aspects of movement and attitude.

Already in the early 1580s Annibale had mastered drawing the human form, still life, and landscape under various conditions of light and perspective. He had taken a long study trip to copy and observe earlier masters. This training, whose innovative combination of the study of nature and art was espoused in the Accademia degli Incamminati, gave Annibale the basis for his compositional triumphs of the following years. As beautiful and complete as many of Annibale's drawings are, they were merely a means to an end, the necessity of thought on the way to the painted composition. No catalogue raisonné of Annibale's drawing oeuvre exists, but there are drawings attributed to him in every major (and minor) cabinet in the world, and several thousand sheets by the Carracci are extant. We can only guess how many were originally produced. Numerous sheets were necessary for Annibale's preparatory method, which began with a compositional sketch, was followed by a fairly final sketch, then by various studies from the model of the body, arms, legs, heads, and drapery (see Cats. 79-81). As Annibale matured, he made more careful studies for his paintings. Nature continued to keep its hold on him and he drew from the model; however, his working method became more complicated. After his arrival in Rome, in 1595, his preparatory method included the study of Renaissance artists as well as ancient sculpture, medals, and reliefs. All of these sources contributed to what is now termed an "eclectic" style, one which every artist before and after the Carracci practiced. Even the radical Caravaggio looked to Michelangelo and Raphael to aid in his strict adherence to nature.

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14. For a discussion on the affetti, see Mahon 1947, 148-151.

15. On a good analysis of the landscape styles of the Carracci, see Whitfield 1980, 50-58, and 1988, 73-95.

16. For reference to the six landscape paintings by Annibale and bibliography, see De Grazia in De Grazia and Garberson 1996, 45-49.

17. Mentioned by Lucio Faberio in his funeral oration for Agostino Carracci in 1603 (see Malvasia 1678 [1841], 1: 308).

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