Annibale Carracci, the Greatest Old Master No One Has Heard of
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| Post-conservation: Annibale Carracci, Madonna and Child with Saints Lucy, Dominic, and Louis of France, about 1596-1598. J. Paul Getty Museum |
"Annibale Carracci," says Blunt.
"Never heard of him. This one?"
"Artemisia Gentileschi."
"Never heard of him either."
"Her, sir."
The episode displays the low opinion of Italian Baroque art in London's swinging 60s, even among royals who inherited loads of the stuff. Since then Artemesia Gentileschi has become a feminist hero on both sides of the Atlantic. Annibale Carracci? He's still hard to place.
In early 2023 the Getty bought a small (17×13-in.) Carracci painting on copper (top of post). It has just gone on view after conservation treatment and reframing.
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| Annibale Carracci, Self-Portrait on Easel, 1605. Uffizi, Florence. A similar version is in the Hermitage |
Carracci is perhaps the most underappreciated of the pivotal figures in European art history. Though now overshadowed by Caravaggio and Artemisia Gentileschi, he anticipated their naturalism and remained influential after their reputations had faded.
A decade-plus before Caravaggio, Annibale and cousin Ludovico Carracci insisted on life studies from models. Annibale experimented with unusual working-class subjects in everyday situations.
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| Annibale Carracci, The Butcher's Shop, early 1580s. Kimbell Art Museum, Fort Worth |
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| Annibale Carracci, River Landscape, about 1590. National Gallery of Art, Washington |
Annibale was among the first Italians to paint pure landscapes. His rustic scenes prefigure both the idealism of Claude and Poussin and the wildness of van Ruisdael.
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| Annibale Carracci and assistants, The Loves of the Gods (Farnese Ceiling), 1597-1608. Palazzo Farnese, Rome |
Yet Annibale is most significant for his architectural frescos, above all the Farnese ceiling in Rome, with its trompe l'oeil "sculptures" and naughty, White Lotus subversions of classicism. Annibale and assistants built on the large-scale achievements of Raphael, Correggio, and Veronese, adding the illusionism that would become a key element of the baroque style. This secured his reputation but, to the modern eye, has made him seem less bracingly radical than Caravaggio. In the 19th century Ruskin damned both the Carraccis and Caravaggio to the "School of Errors and Vices." Unlike Caravaggio, the Carracci family ran a literal art school in Bologna, training such artists as Domenichino, Guido Reni, and Guercino.
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| Ludovico Carracci, Saint Sebastian Thrown Into the Cloaca Maxima, 1612. Getty Museum |
By the mid 20th century, the Italian and especially Bolognese Baroque was out of favor. Prices were low enough to attract the attention of bottom-feeder zillionaire J. Paul Getty. He bought a remarkable painting by Ludovico Carracci, Saint Sebastian Thrown in the Cloaca Maxima. This isn't the usual thirst-trap saint pierced by arrows but a gray corpse, thrown into Rome's sewers. Mr. Getty favored large, cheap paintings, preferably of sexy nude ladies. This ticked two of the boxes. It's now seen as one of Getty's more astute purchases. He also bought two large paintings by Giovanni Lanfranco, who assisted Annibale on the Farnese ceiling.
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| Annibale Carracci, Study of a Triton Blowing a Conch Shell, about 1600. Getty Museum |
When Getty's museum began collecting drawings in the 1980s, it added sheets by Annibale, brother Agostino, and/or cousin Ludovico. A brilliant chalk Triton by Annibale is a figure study for the Farnese ceiling.
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| Annibale Carracci, Head of a Woman, about 1582. Getty Museum |
In 2019, the Getty bought an oil-on-paper Head of a Woman exemplifying Annibale's commitment to real-people subjects. It offers a counterpoint to the Raphaelesque idealism of the copper painting and is nearly the same size.
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| Left: Jean-Étienne Liotard, Portrait of John, Lord Mountstuart, later 4th Earl and 1st Marquess of Bute, 1763. Getty Museum. Right: Nelson Shanks, Bill Clinton, 2005. National Portrait Gallery |
There are only a few Annibale Carracci paintings in the U.S. Yale has one; the Met four (two on copper); the National Gallery two; Cleveland and Kimbell one each. Annibale was a prolific draughtsman, and he created etchings. Groups of the latter are at multiple American museums including LACMA and San Francisco.
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| Before and after conservation and reframing: Annibale Carracci, Madonna and Child with Saints |
Comments
[I confess I still haven't seen the Farnese ceiling, displaying "The Loves of the Gods" fresco cycle, by Annibale and his studio. It's in the Palazzo Farnese, now the French Embassy, in Rome. I'll see it, do or die.]
https://www.metmuseum.org/art/collection/search/438427
The catalogue entry is instructive:
https://www.christies.com/en/lot/lot-1710636?ldp_breadcrumb=back
Per Wiki:
"Sir John Denis Mahon, CH, CBE, FBA (8 November 1910 – 24 April 2011) was a British collector and historian of Italian art. Considered to be one of the few art collectors who was also a respected scholar, he is generally credited, alongside Sacheverell Sitwell and Tancred Borenius, with bringing Italian pre-Baroque and Baroque painters to the attention of English-speaking audiences, reversing the critical aversion to their work that had prevailed from the time of John Ruskin."
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Mahon gifted his extraordinary collection to many British museums, most notably the National Gallery.
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As an aside, one of the Met's loveliest Carraccis includes a Denis Mahon provenance:
https://www.metmuseum.org/art/collection/search/435853
In 2006 I wrote to the Met and asked, "Why would Mahon have sold such a superb work?"
The Met contact wrote back and said he'd shown my query to several curators in the Euro. Paintings Dept., and they all responded with the same answer: "He needed the money."
How fortunate for New York.
> "Her, sir."
A name like "Mary Cassatt" always makes me think of a prestige artist, a prestige artwork. But biases based on gender, culture, nationality, etc., do affect the equation. Biases based on geographical origin too.
In the US, artists and artwork of European background have been traditionally perceived one way, artists and artwork of America have been judged another way.
I was speaking a few months ago with a couple who recently visited Europe. They said the culture, museums and architecture there are impressive in a way that counterpart aspects in upstart, nouveau-riche America aren't.
Americans haven't done so badly compared to the Europeans.
Most Europeans, like most Americans, don't give a flip about culture, museums or architecture.
But those of us who do, I think, are pretty much alike.
Of course, over there the players have been at it forever...England ruling half the world and plundering the rest...the Vatican sapping the poor for yet another oil on canvas or marble masterpiece...the pan-national Hapsburgs hoovering up artists from Spain to Hungary, Naples to Delft.
We poor Americans do manage, though, somehow.
> manage, though, somehow.
That makes me think of how the Egyptians created mind-boggling structures centuries ago, including the pyramids. More recently, the people of Cairo/Egypt have built the Grand Egyptian Museum. At first I assumed it was going to replace the old, musty Egyptian Museum, but the GEM is actually going to compliment it. Meanwhile, the tallest statue in the world (much larger than NYC's Statue of Liberty), built in just the past 5 years, is in one of the smaller cities of India.
When it comes to how people and places evolve, never say never. That has also affected my take on Zumthor's/Govan's/Geffen's building in LA, much less what it has replaced.
This reminds me of a quote from Chinatown: “'Course I'm respectable. I'm old. Politicians, ugly buildings, and whores all get respectable if they last long enough.”