Guercino

The Italian painter Guercino (1591-1666) was probably the first Italian artist to create works that can be called fully baroque in the stylistic sense of the term.

Giovanni Francesco Barbieri, called Guercino because of his squint, was born early in February 1591 in Cento, a little town near Bologna. He went to Rome during the reign (1621-1623) of Pope Gregory XV, who was from Bologna; when the Pope died, Guercino returned to Cento. There he stayed until 1642, when he moved to Bologna, where he spent the rest of his life. He died on Dec. 22, 1666.

There had never been any important artists in Cento, and Guercino apparently taught himself, working largely from engravings and such paintings as were available locally. He said that the picture that influenced him most was Ludovico Carracci's Madonna with St. Francis in a local church. From it Guercino learned about deep, rich colors, applied loosely in the Venetian way, and about the new, more intimate manner of interpreting religious themes.

The protobaroque style that Guercino took in part from Carracci he carried much further in his own early works. Elijah Fed by Ravens (1620), for example, is filled with movement and excitement. The seated prophet, clad in loose, voluminous draperies, turns sharply so that lines of force seem to radiate outward in all directions, like a star. Everything seems unstable, in flux. Light and dark flicker over the surface, breaking up form, reducing clarity. Deep shadows swallow up details, and where light strikes, the surface gleams.

Guercino's Purification of the Virgin (1654) shows how very different his late work was. The mood is now one of calm and withdrawal. The figures are arranged like building blocks in planes parallel to the surface of the painting. A soft, even light fills the interior space, creating transparent shadows that do not obscure the forms they overlay. The emphasis is on dignity and maximum clarity.

This change in style, which began during the early 1620s, was a result of pressure on Guercino both from the art critics he encountered in Rome, who were strongly classical in their orientation, and from the people who bought his paintings, who were often conditioned in their likes and dislikes by the critics. Francesco Scannelli, who knew Guercino well, wrote in 1657:"More than once [Guercino] had heard complaints from those who had paintings that were done in his first manner that … parts of the body were hidden because of too much darkness. For that reason they considered that some parts were unfinished. They asserted that often they could not make out the face, and sometimes even the specific action, of the figures. And thus to satisfy as best he could most of the people, especially those who asked for paintings and had the money to pay for them, he had made paintings in the lighter [that is, less baroque and more classical] style."

Further Reading

The best analysis of Guercino is in Denis Mahon, Studies in Seicento Art and Theory (1947). A good, brief essay on him is in E. K. Waterhouse, Italian Baroque Painting (1962; 2d rev. ed. 1969). □

Guercino ( Giovanni Francesco Barbieri) (bapt. Cento, nr. Bologna, 8 Feb. 1591; d Bologna, 22 Dec. 1666). One of the outstanding Italian painters and draughtsmen of the 17th century; his nickname Guercino (Squinter) was given to him because of an eye defect that is said to have been caused by a childhood accident. He seems to have been mainly self-taught, and his early work drew on a variety of north Italian sources, notably Ludovico Carracci and Venetian painting, to create a highly individual style characterized by dramatic and capricious lighting, strong colour, and broad, vigorous brushwork. In 1621 one of his patrons, Cardinal Alessandro Ludovisi (1554–1623), became Pope Gregory XV and summoned him to Rome. Among other commissions there he painted the celebrated ceiling fresco of Aurora (1621) in the Casino of the Villa Ludovisi for Gregory's nephew, Cardinal Ludovico Ludovisi (1595–1632). This exuberant work, with its illusionistic architectural framework designed by Agostino Tassi, is much more Baroque in style than Guido Reni's treatment of the subject of a decade earlier.

On the death of the pope in 1623 Guercino returned to Cento, but his short stay in Rome introduced a more classical feeling to his work. This trend became more pronounced after he moved to Bologna in 1642 to take over the mantle of Reni, who died in that year. For the next quarter of a century, until his own death, he was Bologna's leading painter, and his late works can be remarkably similar to Reni's, calm and light in colouring, with little of the lively movement of his early style (St Luke Displaying a Painting of the Virgin, 1652, Nelson–Atkins Mus., Kansas City, Mo). His career is especially well documented because of Malvasia's scrupulous biography, which lists his main commissions, coupled with the survival of a studio account book covering the period from 1629 until his death.

As well as being a major painter, Guercino was one of the most brilliant draughtsmen of his age. In addition to preparatory studies for his paintings, he made many informal drawings for his own pleasure (including landscapes, genre scenes, and caricatures) and these—usually executed in pen and brown ink—often show remarkable freedom and vitality. The finest collection of his drawings is in the Royal Library at Windsor Castle. Guercino's reputation remained high until the mid-19th century, when it crumbled, along with those of the other great Bolognese painters, under the attacks of Ruskin. His rehabilitation in the mid-20th century owed much to the championship of Denis Mahon.

Guercino ( Giovanni Francesco Barbieri) (1591–1666). One of the outstanding Italian painters and draughtsmen of the 17th century; his nickname Guercino (‘Squinter’) was given to him because of an eye defect that is said to have been caused by a childhood accident. He was born at Cento near Ferrara and seems to have been mainly self-taught. His early work drew on a variety of north Italian sources, notably Ludovico Carracci and Venetian painting, to create a highly individual style characterized by dramatic and capricious lighting, strong colour, and broad, vigorous brushwork. In 1621 one of his patrons, Cardinal Alessandro Ludoviso, became Pope Gregory XV and summoned him to Rome. Among other commissions there he painted the celebrated ceiling fresco of Aurora (1621) in the Casino of the Villa Ludovisi for Gregory's nephew, Cardinal Ludovico Ludoviso. This exuberant work, with its illusionistic architectural framework designed by Agostino Tassi, is much more Baroque in style than Guido Reni's treatment of the subject of a decade earlier. On the death of the pope in 1623 Guercino returned to Cento, but his short stay in Rome introduced a more classical feeling to his work. This trend became more pronounced when he moved to Bologna in 1642 to take over the studio of Reni, who died in that year. For the next quarter of a century, until his own death, he was Bologna's leading painter, and his late works can be remarkably similar to Reni's, calm and light in colouring, with little of the lively movement of his early style (St Luke Displaying a Painting of the Virgin, 1652, Nelson–Atkins Mus., Kansas City). Guercino was one of the most brilliant draughtsmen of his age. In addition to preparatory studies for his paintings, he made many informal drawings for his own pleasure (including landscapes, genre scenes, and caricatures) and these—usually executed in pen and brown ink—often show remarkable freedom and vitality. The finest collection of his drawings is in the Royal Library at Windsor Castle.

Guercino , 1591-1666, Italian painter whose original name was Giovanni Francesco Barbieri, b. near Bologna. He studied with Ludovico Carracci. Between 1621 and 1623 he was in Rome, where he painted the ceiling frescos of the Casino Ludovisi and his superb Burial of St. Petronilla (Capitoline Mus., Rome). The classicist tendencies prevalent in Rome caused him to alter his style so that he never equaled the dramatic intensity of his early work. An extensive collection of his drawings is in the Royal Library at Windsor.

Bibliography: See D. Mahon, Studies in Seicento Art and Theory (1947).