After the Mannerists came the Eclectics of Bologna(ITALIAN PAINTING)

THE ECLECTICS: After the Mannerists came the Eclectics of Bologna, led by theCaracci, who, about 1585, sought to "revive" art. They started out to correct the faults of the Mannerists, and yet their own art was based more on the art of their great predecessors than on nature. They thought to make a union of Renaissance excellences by combining Michael Angelo's line,original oil paintings, Titian's color, Correggio's light-and-shade and Raphael's symmetry and grace. The attempt was praiseworthy for the time, but hardly successful. They caught the lines and lights and colors of the great men, but they overlooked the fact that the excellence of the imitated lay largely in their inimitable individualities, which could not be combined. The Eclectic work was done with intelligence, but their system was against them and their baroque age was against them. Midway in their career the Caracci themselves modified their eclecticism and placed more reliance upon nature. But their pupils paid little heed to the modification. oil paintings for sale

There were five of the Caracci, but three of them—Ludovico(1555-1619), Agostino (1557-1602), and Annibale (1560-1609)—led the school, and of these Annibale was the most distinguished. They had many pupils, and their influence was widely spread over Italy. In Sir Joshua Reynolds's day they were ranked with Raphael, but at the present time criticism places them where they belong—painters of the Decadence with little originality or spontaneity in their art, though much technical skill. Domenichino (1581-1641) was the strongest of the pupils. His St. Jerome was rated by Poussin as one of the three great paintings of the world,oil painting reproductions, but it never deserved such rank. It is powerfully composed, but poor in coloring and handling. The painter had great repute in his time, and was one of the best of the seventeenth century men. Guido Reni (1575-1642) was a painter of many gifts and accomplishments, combined with many weaknesses. His works are well composed and painted, but excessive in sentiment and overdone in pathos. Albani (1578-1660) ran to elegance and a porcelain-like prettiness. Guercino (1591-1666) was originally of the Eclectic School at Bologna,abstract oil paintings on canvas, but later took up with the methods of the Naturalists at Naples. He was a painter of far more than the average ability. Sassoferrato (1605-1685) and Carlo Dolci (1616-1686) were so super-saturated with sentimentality that often their skill as painters is overlooked or forgotten. In spirit they were about the weakest of the century. There were other eclectic schools started throughout Italy—at Milan, Cremona, Ferrara—but they produced little worth recording. At Rome certain painters like Cristofano Allori(1577-1621), an exceptionally strong man for the time, Berrettini(1596-1669), and Maratta (1625-1713), manufactured a facile kind of painting from what was attractive in the various schools, but it was never other than meretricious work. modern abstract art oil painting

FIG. 54.—ANNIBALE CARACCI. ENTOMBMENT OF CHRIST. LOUVRE.