BOLOGNA, ITALY.- The Museo Civico Archeologico presents Annibale Carracci, on view through January 7, 2007. With the aim of offering the public a complete overview of the great artist’s production preserved in Bologna, a new layout of Annibale’s works at the Pinacoteca Nazionale is now offered. Some of these are newly attributed, and the exhibition also includes his drawings and prints. The visit to the Pinacoteca rounds off the thematic exhibition at the Museo Civico Archeologico.

The current re-evaluation of 17th-century art has ensured that Annibale Carracci (1560 – 1609), who for centuries has been considered its greatest exponent, finally has a thematic exhibition dedicated to him. Promoted by the Comune di Bologna and the Comune di Roma, the exhibition is curated by Daniele Benati and Eugenio Riccomini and boasts a prestigious scientific committee in touch with the greatest international experts on the work of Annibale. This is the first exhibition to be dedicated exclusively to the youngest and most gifted of the three Carracci, celebrated by his contemporaries as the new Raphael, and the creator of paintings and drawings immediately admired for their novelty of invention and felicity of execution. For generations of artists, they proved a model, and they formed key parts of major European Collections already in the 17th century.

So Annibale too finally has an exhibition, which reconstructs his career from his youth in Bologna to his maturity in Rome, and will make it possible to appreciate the extraordinary variety and richness of his oeuvre in full: his highly sought-after drawings, prints and exceptionally broad range of paintings range from ‘low’ genre scenes to altarpieces, from portraits to landscapes. Finally, some films will enable a virtual visit of the frescos by the artist in palazzo Fava, palazzo Magnani and Palazzo Sampieri in Bologna, as well as in palazzo Farnese in Rome. This ample selection of works comes from the most important museums of Italy and the world.

As a great acquaintance and friend of the time, Giulio Mancini, wrote, Annibale was a universal painter, sacred, profane, humorous and serious, and it is indeed in this multiplicity of languages, genres and styles that resides the modernity of Annibale Carracci.

Brother of Agostino and cousin of Ludovico, Annibale (Bologna, 1560 - Rome, 1609) is the greatest exponent of the glories of the Carracci and of the effects of their “reform” on European painting. The appearance of his new style, marked initially by a return to nature without intellectualistic mediation, which went beyond the Bolognese mannerist tradition in a single bound, was facilitated by important commissions that gave him the primacy over Agostino and Ludovico. However, he maintained a firm affinity of intent with them, as evidenced by the Episodes from the story of Jason, executed in 1584 in Palazzo Fava.

In 1595, he moved to Rome, summoned by cardinal Odoardo Farnese. In the cardinal’s palace, he frescoed the Camerino and Galleria (1597-1600). His later Roman activity, affected by the onset of the nervous illness that was to lead to his premature death, was marked by a rapid advance in the development of his ideas. Boldly altering the premises with which he had started, the artist laid the foundations for much of the figurative culture that was to come, and inaugurated the modern genre of landscape and history painting with a classicizing content.

A controversial and tormented figure, animated by a profound awareness of his own capacities and morality of his work, he was in the end crushed by the schools and styles still dominating Rome, against which he attempted in vain to rebel.

The exhibition - As a great acquaintance and friend of the time, Giulio Mancini, wrote, Annibale was a universal painter, sacred, profane, humorous and serious, and it is indeed in this multiplicity of languages, genres and styles that resides the modernity of Annibale Carracci. The current re-evaluation of 17th-century art has ensured that Annibale finally has a thematic exhibition dedicated to him. Promoted by the Comune di Bologna and the Comune di Roma, the exhibition is curated by Daniele Benati and Eugenio Riccomini and boasts a prestigious scientific committee, focusing on the youngest and most gifted of the three Carracci, celebrated by his contemporaries as the ‘new Raphael’. His paintings and drawings were immediately set up as a model for generations of artists, and they formed key parts of major European collections already in the 17th century. The exhibition, which reconstructs his career from his youth in Bologna to his maturity in Rome, makes it possible to appreciate the extraordinary variety and richness of his oeuvre in full: his highly sought-after drawings, prints and exceptionally broad range of paintings range from ‘low’ genre scenes to altarpieces, from portraits to landscapes. Finally, some films will enable a virtual visit of the frescos by the artist in palazzo Fava, palazzo Magnani and Palazzo Sampieri in Bologna, as well as in palazzo Farnese in Rome. This ample selection of works comes from the most important museums of Italy and the world.

The artist - Brother of Agostino and cousin of Ludovico, Annibale (Bologna, 1560 - Rome, 1609) was an exceptionally talented artist; it was he who was the greatest exponent of the glories of the Carracci and of the effects of their “reform” on European painting. His genius manifested itself, especially at the outset, through a surprising, voracious curiosity in nature, leaving aside any intellectualistic mediation, and doing away immediately with the Bolognese mannerist tradition; just as Caravaggio was to do in Rome in later years. He painted not only many sacred works, but also the common people and vast landscapes and, above all, he drew from the life a great deal, using the immediacy he recorded also in is cycles of frescos painted between 1584 and 1594 in the palaces of Fava, Magnani and Sampieri in Bologna, with his brother and cousin.

In 1595, he moved to Rome, summoned by cardinal Odoardo Farnese. In the cardinal’s palace, he frescoed the Camerino and Galleria (1597-1600). His later Roman activity, affected by the onset of the nervous illness that was to lead to his premature death, was marked by a rapid advance in the development of his ideas. Boldly altering the premises with which he had started, the artist laid the foundations for much of the figurative culture that was to come, and inaugurated the modern genre of landscape and history painting with a classicizing content.

A controversial and tormented figure, animated by a profound awareness of his own capacities and morality of his work, he was in the end crushed by the aristocratic system imbued with privilege still dominating Rome, against which he attempted in vain to rebel.