ROUEN, FRANCE.- Musée des Beaux-Arts de Rouen presents The Genius of Bologna - Drawings from the 17th and 18th Centuries from the Public French Collections, on view through February 4, 2007. The exhibition was curated by Catherine Loisel, Curator in chief at the graphic arts section, musée du Louvre and Diederik Bakhüys, Curator of the drawing section at the musée des Beaux-Arts de Rouen.

The musée des Beaux-Arts has dedicated a large part of its program of 2006 to Italian art. After “Mirror of time. Master pieces from the museums of Florence” it now looks at the major masters of the artistic scene in Bologna. This event, an initiative of the Louvre museum, and directed by Catherine Loisel-Théret, is part of an ambitious project of seven exhibitions organized through France from October 2006 to February 2007. It is dedicated to drawing in Italy in the baroque period, and offers a unique vision of the wealth of the patrimony of the French public collections.

At the beginning of the XVIIth century, Bologna is the scene of an historical artistic reform, based on the practice of drawing according to nature. Surrounded by brilliant disciples, the three cousins Annibale, Ludovico and Agostino Carracci gave a new life to the great classic ideal of the Renaissance by adapting it to the sensibility of the Counter-Reform and the expressive demands of the baroque period. Thanks to them, drawing once again found the place Michel-Angelo and Raphael had given it: it is the chosen instrument that allows the artist to explore the visible world and at the same time it embodies the ideal virtues of the work of art.