253 



BOLOGNESE SCHOOL OF PAINTING. 



BOLOGNESE SCHOOL OF PAINTING. 



251 



painting which afterwards added a new lustre to the school in the 

 hands of the Caraeci, Domenichino, Grinialdi, and others. 



Thus the imitation of the two great Florentine and Roman masters 

 lasted with no other change than that of increasing mannerism or 

 insipidity, till beyond the middle of the 16th century, about which 

 time the followers of the elder Zuccaro in Rome and those of Bronzino 

 in Florence may be ranked with the Fontanas and the Passerottis of 

 Bologna. The characteristic excellence of the Venetian school had 

 been occasionally blended with the other styles, but in general the 

 influence of each was separate and exclusive : meanwhile, owing to the 

 ascendancy of the two first, the imitation of Correggio can hardly be 

 said to have extended uninterruptedly beyond his own date, since 

 Parmigiano, who indeed rather holds the rank of an original master, 

 survived him but a very few years. Baroccio may therefore be con- 

 sidered to have led the way, about 1565, not only in including Correggio 

 among the great models proposed for imitation, but even in preferring 

 him to the rest. The example thus set to the Roman school was 

 followed soon after by Cigoli in Florence, namely about 1580, a period 

 which immediately precedes the dawning influence and fame of the 

 Caraeci. They too, from whatever cause, partook of the new admira- 

 tion, and in their attempt to unite the excellences of the different 

 schools, it was natural that a style, which had been hitherto in a great 

 measure overlooked, should form a chief element of that eclectic per- 

 fection which was proposed as the object of attainment. Accordingly, 

 the imitation of Correggio preponderates in the first works of these 

 masters ; and Annibale C'aracci's letters from Parma prove that, like 

 many other painters of the day, he considered the excellence of Cor- 

 reggio as a new discover}-. 



Lodovico Caraeci, who had studied hi Venice, Florence, and Parma, 

 conceived the plan of introducing a new style, according to his 

 biographers, when alone and unassisted, and it is said that he per- 

 suaded his younger cousins Agostino and Annibale to devote them- 

 selves to painting in order to aid him in effecting his purpose. He 

 sent them, after well-grounded elementary studies, to Parma and 

 Venice, from the latter of which schools it may be observed the 

 Bolognese painters seem to have borrowed least. The first work of 

 importance done after then- return to Bologna was a series of compo- 

 sitions, representing the story of Jason, in an apartment of the 

 Palazzo Fava : Lodovico himself assisted, but the greater part was the 

 work of Annibale. The severe criticisms and opposition which this 

 performance excited induced the Caraeci to strengthen their party, 

 and the famous school was opened which shortly attracted most of the 

 rising painters who were studying with Denis Calvart, Cesi, and Fon- 

 tana : ample details as to the mode of study in the school of the 

 Caraeci may be found in Halvasia. The fame of these masters was 

 soon after firmly established by their works ; and Agostino, as an 

 engraver as well as a painter, contributed to spread and sustain their 

 name : but the enmity of the abettors of the old style was not com- 

 pletely silenced till the frescoes in the Palazzo Magnani were executed. 

 Denis Calvart was the Lost to fall in with the general approbation ; and 

 it appears from Malvasia that his chief objection to the new mode of 

 Btudy was the constant reference to nature which was now deemed 

 indi.ij>ensat>lc : from this objection the previous state of the schools 

 and the manner of the painters of Bologna may be inferred. 



Annibale Caraeci repaired to Rome about or shortly before 1600, and 

 painted in various churches ; but his great work, the monument of his 

 powers, and the specimen of the school most frequently quoted, although 

 not perhaps the most characteristic, is the series of frescoes in the 

 Farnese palace. In this work Agostino among others assisted : the 

 Cephalus and the Galatea, according to Bellori, were painted entirely 

 by him. The admirers of the antique and of the Roman school prefer 

 this work even to Lodovico's performances in Bologna : Poussin and 

 other painters, who visited Rome early in the 17th century, gave it 

 the highest praise. 



The followers of Lodovico at Bologna were, however, true to the 

 founder of the school : posterity seems to have confirmed the opinion, 

 and to have decided that this great painter, with less academic power 

 than Annibale, is more original in style. Sir Joshua Reynolds thus 

 speaks of Lodovico Caraeci : " His unaffected breadth of light and 

 shadow, the simplicity of his colouring, which, holding its proper rank, 

 does not draw aside the least part of the attention from the subject, 

 and the solemn effect of that twilight which seems diffused over his 

 pictures, appear to me to correspond with grave and dignified subjects 

 than the more artificial brilliancy of sunshine which enlightens 

 tin- pictures of Titian." (Discourse II.) 



The principles and practice of the Caraeci and their scholars super- 

 seded (for .1 time every other style in Italy ; yet it may be remarked 

 tnnt the efforts of Lodovico can hardly be considered so spontaneous 

 aivl in<li']j<-iii]'-t!t as the historians of art have commonly asserted. It 

 has been already shown that a new impulse had manifested itself in 

 )]: limiiitTi nd Ki'iviitino schools, even previously to the revolution 

 which the Caraeci effected ; and whatever may have been the origin of 

 that impulse, the sudden rise of various and powerful talents in 

 Bologna may be considered a symptom rather than the cause of general 

 improvement. 



Among the numerous scholars of the Caraeci, Domenichino holds 

 the first rank ; but the merit of this painter was long unnoticed in 

 Home, where he resided some time, owing in some degree to the 



intrigues of his rivals.. Poussin had the honour of briugin- some of 

 his best works into notice, and declared him to be, in his opinion 

 the greatest painter after Raffaelle. By some modern critics, too, he 

 has been preferred to the Caraeci themselves : his chief excellence 

 and that in which he approaches Raffaelle, is his expression. The 

 graceful Albani, who left the school of Calvart for that of the Caraeci 

 perhaps like Domenichino imbibed his taste in landscape from the 

 Fleming: he communicated it to Francesco and Giovanni Battista 

 Mola, who often suffered it to predominate in their own historical 

 works, and who occasionally painted the landscape backgrounds to the 

 figures of Albani : these consisted frequently of females and children 

 in subjects connected with poetry or allegory, and he excelled in them 

 perhaps more than in sacred subjects. The more brilliant talents of 

 Guido excited the jealousy of the Caraeci from the beginning. Lodo- 

 vico encouraged Guercino as a rival to him, and Domenichino was put 

 forward, it is said, for no other reason, by Aunibale in Rome. The 

 light and silvery tone which is observable in some of Guido's best 

 works is said to have been owing to an accidental expression of Anui- 

 bale Caraeci, who at a time when the dark style of Caravaggio excited 

 general attention, and was imitated among others by Guido himself, 

 remarked that the opposite treatment, with appropriate subjects, would 

 perhaps be still more attractive. Caravaggio, who was born 'in the 

 Milanese, and painted in Rome, Naples, and elsewhere, cannot be placed 

 in the Bolognese school, which however he greatly influenced : he 

 belongs to the successful innovators who, at the close of the Kith 

 century, sought to oppose literal and unselected nature to the insipid 

 imitation of the purer styles, and may be considered the chief repre- 

 sentative of a class of painters called by the Italians the Naturalist! 

 and the Tenebrosi. Among the painters of the Bologuese school, 

 Guercino, born at Cento, seems to have been most smitten with the' 

 vigorous effects of Caravaggio, although, in his latest practice he 

 acknowledged the charms of Guido's style, by attempting to unite it 

 perhaps with little success, to his own. His dark pictures are gene- 

 rally his best, and he sometimes united the higher qualities of expres- 

 sion and of form with the magic of his relief. Both Caravaggio and 

 Guercino studied in Venice, and the former particularly aimed at the 

 style of Giorgione ; yet their works, however admirable, present but 

 few traces of Venetian principles, and tlu's is to be accounted for by 

 the spirit of innovation which manifested itself in every branch of the 

 art, and which took the opposite of the vices of the day. The negative 

 and somewhat heavy colour of the two masters alluded to was opposed 

 to a florid and weak imitation of the colourists, the excesses of which 

 are ridiculed by Boschini in his ' Carta del Navegar Pittoresco.' 



Lanfrauco, born at Parma, was another distinguished scholar of the 

 Caraeci, and assisted Annibale in the Farnese palace in Rome : his own 

 great work, the cupola of St. Andrea della Valle in the same city, is 

 the best specimen of his powers, and it is here that as a machinist 

 (the term applied by the Italians to painters of large compositions on 

 ceilings and in galleries) he aimed at the grandeur of manner and bold- 

 ness of foreshortening which he had long studied in the works of Cor- 

 reggio at Parma. 



Of the remaining disciples of the Caraeci it may be sufficient to 

 mention the names of Tiariui, Lionello Spada, and Cavedone. All the 

 more noted scholars before mentioned had numerous followers, and 

 perhaps none more than Guido. In these the manner of the respective 

 masters naturally degenerated, and no new talent arose. The taste in 

 landscape which the Caraeci introduced or improved was inherited and 

 almost exclusively practised by Giovanni Battista Viola, the Grimaldi, 

 and others : the most perfect specimens of this branch of art, as prac- 

 tised in the school, are however to be sought in the works of Domeni- 

 chino and Annibale Caracci. 



About the year 1700 the greatest name was Carlo Cignani, a painter 

 of considerable repute in his day, and who so far revived the prin- 

 ciples of the school that he professed to unite the anatomical science of 

 Annibale Caracci with the more attractive qualities of Correggio. 

 Under his auspices the Clementine Academy of Bologna was instituted 

 to preserve as much as possible the acknowledged principles of the art' 

 and to point out the best models for imitation. But while the impulse 

 which the Caracci and then- scholars had communicated to the school 

 was gradually exhausting itself, a pernicious and in many respects 

 opposite tendency had been gaining ground. The specious facility and 

 consequent popularity of the machinists, who imitated Vasari in 

 Florence and the Zuccari and Arpino in Rome, had been with difficulty 

 opposed by the united efforts of the Caracci, and appear to have been 

 the chief causes of the neglect of Domenichiuo. This empty facility, 

 no longer contrasted with such distinguished talents, was naturally 

 considered the highest proof of ability, and by degrees almost extin- 

 guished the taste for well-studied imitation. A Bolognese writer and 

 painter, Zauotti, who was long professor of the Clementine Academy, 

 was one of the first to raise his voice against this destructive man- 

 nerism, and to recommend a more frequent reference to nature. He 

 has been considered to have led the way to opinions far more decided 

 than his own as to the necessity of returning to the first principles of 

 imitation, and indeed to the methods of the earliest masters. These 

 notions have been openly expressed in Germany, where the writers 

 on art, allowing for some exaggeration in their views, have had 

 the merit of directing the attention of the world of taste to the 

 simple but impressive productions of the older Italian painters, 



