Bolognese School

Bolognese school, in the most restricted sense, the works produced and the theories expounded by the late 16th- and early 17th-century Italian painters Lodovico Carracci and his cousins, the brothers Agostino and Annibale Carracci. Although each was different in temperament and inclination, the three Carraccis cooperated in a number of early works, especially fresco cycles. Disturbed by the excesses of the Mannerist painters, they took it upon themselves to reform art through a process of research and experiment. Professing the superiority of direct observation, they drew from the actual model. Their clear, simple, direct pictures fit well the demands of the Counter-Reformation that in religious art there be no barriers between observer and object. About 1585 the cousins formed the Accademia degli Incamminati (“Academy of the Progressives”) in order to foster their ideas and to train young painters.

The activity of the Bolognese school caught the attention of Cardinal Odoardo Farnese, and Annibale was invited to Rome in 1595 to decorate first the ceiling of the Camerino and later that of the Galleria in the Palazzo Farnese. A short time later Agostino joined his brother, as did a number of the Carracci pupils, among them Domenichino, Guido Reni, Albani, and Lanfranco. The result was that what had hitherto been an essentially regional movement became the most influential force in Italian Baroque painting. The complex of painted episodes on the vault of the Farnese Galleria, showing the loves of the pagan gods and goddesses, became the new “academy” and greatly influenced later masters. In addition to his work in the Palazzo Farnese, Annibale Carracci is credited with establishing the rules for the heroic landscape.

Lodovico never went to Rome but remained in Bologna, where he continued to paint until his death. In 1622 Guido Reni returned to Bologna and became the leading painter there, and the Bolognese school after his arrival was ruled by Reni’s tempered classicism.