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Annibale Carracci (November 3, 1560, in Bologna -
July 15, 1609, in Rome) was an Italy|Italian
painter, etcher and engraver.

In Bologna, he opened, together with his cousin
Lodovico Carracci and brother Agostino
Carracci|Agostino, the Academy of the Incamminati
or Desiderosi, later called the "School of the
Eclecticism in art|Eclectics" and the "School of
the Carracci". Giovanni Bellori considered him the
epitome of Roman Baroque and the finest living
artist at the time of writing of his (Bellori's)
Idea.

They worked together early in their careers, and
it is not easy to distinguish their shares in, for
example, the cycle of frescos in the Palazzo Fava
in Bologna (c.1583-84). In the early 1580s they
opened a private teaching academy, which soon
became a center for progressive art. It was
originally called the Accademia dei Desiderosi
('Desiderosi' meaning 'desirous of fame and
learning'), but later changed its name to Academia
degli Incamminati (Academy of the Progressives).
In their teaching they laid special emphasis on
drawing from the life (all three were outstanding
graphic artists) and clear draughtsmanship became
a quality particularly associated with artists of
the Bolognese School, notably Domenichino and
Reni, two of the leading members of the following
generation who trained with the Carracci.

They continued working in close relationship until
1595, when Annibale, who was by far the greatest
artist of the family, was called to Rome by
Cardinal Odoardo Farnese to carry out his
masterpiece, the decoration of the Farnese Gallery
in the cardinal's family palace. He first
decorated a small room called the Camerino with
stories of Hercules, and in 1597 undertook the
ceiling of the larger gallery, where the theme was
The Loves of the Gods, or, as Bellori described
it, "human love governed by Celestial love".
Although the ceiling is rich in the interplay of
various illusionistic elements, it retains
fundamentally the self-contained and unambiguous
character of High Renaissance decoration, drawing
inspiration from Michelangelo's Sistine Ceiling
and Raphael's frescos in the Vatican Loggie and
the Farnesina. The full untrammelled stream of
Baroque illusionism was still to come in the work
of Cortona and Lanfranco, but Annibale's
decoration was one of the foundations of their
style.

Throughout the 17th and 18th centuries the Farnese
Ceiling was ranked alongside the Sistine Ceiling
and Raphael's frescos in the Vatican Stanze as one
of the supreme masterpieces of painting. It was
enormously influential, not only as a pattern book
of heroic figure design, but also as a model of
technical procedure; Annibale made hundreds of
drawings for the ceiling, and until the age of
Romanticism such elaborate preparatory work became
accepted as a fundamental part of composing any
ambitious history painting. In this sense,
Annibale exercised a more profound influence than
his great contemporary Caravaggio, for the latter
never worked in fresco, which was still regarded
as the greatest test of a painter's ability and
the most suitable vehicle for painting in the
Grand Manner.

Annibale's other works in Rome also had great
significance in the history of painting. Pictures
such as Domine, Quo Vadis? (National Gallery,
London, c.1602) reveal a striking economy in
figure composition and a force and precision of
gesture that had a profound influence on Poussin
and through him on the whole language of gesture
in painting. He developed landscape painting along
similar lines, and is regarded as the father of
ideal landscape, in which he was followed by
Domenichino (his favorite pupil), Claude, and
Poussin. The Flight into Egypt (Doria Gallery,
Rome, c.1604) is Annibale's masterpiece in this
genre.

In his last years Annibale was overcome by
melancholia and gave up painting almost entirely
after 1606. When he died he was buried accordingly
to his wished near Raphael in the Pantheon. It is
a measure of his achievement that artists as great
and diverse as Bernini, Poussin and Rubens found
so much to admire and praise in his work.

Annibale's art also had a less formal side that
comes out in his caricatures (he is generally
credited with inventing the form) and in his early
genre paintings, which are remarkable for their
lively observation and free handling (The
Butcher's Shop, Christ Church, Oxford). Agostino
assisted Annibale in the Farnese Gallery from 1597
to 1600, but he was important mainly as a teacher
and engraver. His systematic anatomical studies
were engraved after his death and were used for
nearly two centuries as teaching aids. He spent
the last two years in Parma, where he did his own
"Farnese Ceiling", decorating a ceiling in the
Palazzo del Giardino with mythological scenes for
Duke Ranuccio Farnese. It shows a meticulous but
somewhat spiritless version of his brother's
lively Classicism. Ludovico left Bologna only for
brief periods and directed the Carracci academy by
himself after his cousins had gone to Rome. His
work is uneven and highly personal. Painterly and
expressive considerations always outweigh those of
stability and calm Classicism in his work, and at
its best there is a passionate and poetic quality
indicative of his preference for Tintoretto and
Jacopo Bassano. His most fruitful period was
1585-95, but near the end of his career he still
produced remarkable paintings of an almost
Expressionist force, such as the Christ Crucified
above Figures in Limbo (Sta Francesco Romana,
Ferrara, 1614). 

==External links==
*http://www.newadvent.org/cathen/03374c.htm
Catholic Encyclopedia: Carracci

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