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The Inventive Genius of Annibale Carracci
Diane De Grazia   page 4 of 6

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Bellori related that Annibale made extensive preparations for his frescoes in the Camerino and Gallery of the Farnese Palace. For example, to correctly place the globe in Hercules' arms, in the Camerino, he made at least twenty drawings (see cat. 33).18 Drawings exhibited here for the Farnese Palace indicate Annibale's interest in earlier artists' solutions for grand, decorative murals. He studied not only Michelangelo's Sistine chapel, as is well known, but also frescoes by his early Parmese idol Correggio, his Bolognese compatriot Pellegrino Tibaldi, and his Roman contemporary Cavaliere d'Arpino.19 Ancient Roman, Renaissance, and mannerist artists and the natural world were studied assiduously to great effect. Most important to him in his Roman years was Raphael, whose figural and compositional style he emulated. The mature Annibale left nothing to chance in working out his compositions. His studies began with preliminary sketches, usually in ink, that incorporated his ideas for the layout of forms (Cats. 40, 43). After numerous compositional drawings, he made studies to understand the fall of light and to refine the composition, often in pen and ink or chalk heightened with white (cat. 42). He continued this refinement by a careful study of each figure of the composition, often including further attention to limbs, faces, and drapery (cat. 45). Perhaps it was at this time that he made the small papier-mâché models that Bellori indicated he used.20 At this point, too, he integrated copies of ancient sculpture and paintings, where he felt the musculature or position of a form warranted it. Drawings for the Farnese Gallery ceiling included loose quotations of Michelangelo's ignudi (cat. 60), and Roman sculpture always provided useful fodder (cat. 34). Following these further studies of light and human form, Annibale integrated the entire concept in a full-scale cartoon to be transferred to the fresco (cat. 47).

Concurrently, he would have made oil studies to correct color. If this process sounds much like that of Federico Barocci, whose working methods were also related by Bellori, it is.21 On Annibale's studioso corso he saw Barocci's art firsthand and was influenced by his use of color. He certainly would have known Barocci's drawings, and may possibly have met the artist himself. In any case, only Barocci before him made equally elaborate preparations for his works, including his final and justly famous oil studies.

Annibale's working method has been described often to suggest his eclectic and rather monotonous linear progression to a final composition. Nothing could be farther from the truth. Throughout the process the artist was thinking of new forms and ideas, incorporating his study of earlier artists with his basic concept for the final work. In his mind, even a cartoon was not considered final. In the few cartoons that exist by the Carracci, we see the usual subtle changes and corrections.22 In at least one case, however, that for the fresco of Hercules Resting in the Camerino Farnese, Annibale reversed and rethought the entire composition after the cartoon had been completed, and, possibly, after he had begun the fresco.23 Consequently, the view of Annibale as a draftsman whose ideas were worked out completely before he began to paint must be revised. His creative genius continued until the painted work was completed. What differed in Annibale's working method from his predecessors was his continuous incorporation of nature throughout the creative process. He may have looked at ancient sculpture and medals and at his Renaissance and mannerist predecessors, but he always considered his forms within a believable atmosphere. In a drawing of a man carrying a vase (cat. 83), Annibale came the closest he could to both a Raphaelesque form and Raphael's graphic style, but it is evident that he also observed the action of the turning figure grasping the vase directly from a human model. Even in his mythological subjects, such as the studies for the Tazza Farnese (Cats. 65-67), the decorative elements of foliage and flowers, the landscape backgrounds, and the fantastic satyrs are believable because they are based on a close study of nature. And the figures on the ceiling of the Farnese Gallery resemble ancient sculpture and medals on purpose because we are intended to believe that they are real sculpture.

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18. Bellori 1968, 67-68 (1672, 81).

19. Annibale made drawings that recall Tibaldi's work in the Palazzo Poggi, Bologna, and Cavaliere d'Arpino's ceiling in the Cappella Olgiati in Santa Prassede, Rome.

20. Bellori 1968, 33 (1672, 47). Bellori mentioned "figures in relief," which could also have preceded this stage as refinement of the whole composition.

21. See Bellori 1672, 194-196, on Barocci's working methods. Translated into English in Cleveland and New Haven 1978, 23-24.

22. See Agostino's cartoons for the Farnese Gallery in London 1995.

23. See De Grazia 1998b, 295.

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