Yet Mengs denies that they were consummate colourists, though they studied the Lombard and Venetian schools, an opinion confirmed by Lodovico's paintings in oil, which are faded and almost gone. This arose, either from the nature of his grounds, from too abundant use of oil, or from not allowing due time between preparing his canvass and colouring it. The same remark will not apply to his frescos, which, on a near view, exhibit a boldness of hand equal almost to Paolo's; nor, in the opinion of Bellori, was there any work which, in point of colouring, reflected higher credit on the Caracci, and on the age, than their pictures in the Casa Magnani. They boast a truth, force, mixture, and harmony of colours, such as to entitle them also in this portion of the art to the praise of being reformers of the age. They effectually banished those wretched yellows, and other weak, washy tints, introduced from parsimony, in place of the azures and different colours of higher price. In this Bellori accords most merit to Annibal; declaring it was owing to him that Lodovico himself renounced his first method of colouring, which was formed on that of Procaccini.
In action and expression they aimed at vivacity, but without ever losing sight of propriety, of which they were extremely observant; and to which they were ready to sacrifice any of the graces of the art. In taste of invention and composition, they come near that of Raffaello. The Caracci were not lavish of their figures, conceiving twelve sufficient for any historical piece, except in crowds, or in battle-pieces, where they were still moderate, in order to give greater relief to particular groups. That they were competent to compose with judgment, learning, and variety, is fully apparent from their sacred histories represented on altars, where they avoided, as much as possible, the very trite representation of a Madonna between various saints. This truth is still more remarkably shewn in their profane histories, and in none better than those of Romulus, in the family just before mentioned. The three relations there appear universal in the art, as perspective, landscape, and ornamental painters, masters of every style, and concentering in one point of view whatever is most desirable in any single work. The three artists seem to disappear in one; and the same is observed also in several galleries and churches of Bologna. They followed the same maxims, and in the same studio designed in union with one another, conferring and taking measures how best to complete every work in hand. In several instances it still remains matter of doubt whether pictures are to be attributed to Annibal or to Lodovico; and the three scriptural histories of the Sampieri, in which the three relations wished to display their respective powers, do not exhibit a diversity which might essentially characterize their respective authors. Some indeed there are who may detect in Lodovico a more general imitation of Titian, than is observable in the cousins, Agostino inclining more to the taste of Tintoretto, Annibal to that of Coreggio. It has sometimes been remarked that the figures of the first of the three are light in form, those of the third, robust; while those of Agostino hold a middle rank. At Bologna I found Lodovico enjoying most repute for a certain elevation and grandeur; Agostino for his inventive powers; Annibal for grace. Every one must judge, however, according to his own views. It is now my duty to consider these separately.
Lodovico, doubtless, rises into the sublime in many of his works at Bologna. His picture of the "Probatica" so excellent both in point of architecture and the design of the figures; that of S. Girolamo, who, suspending his pen, turns towards heaven with a look and gesture so truly impressive and dignified; his Limbo of holy fathers, which, as if to renew his delight in it, he repeated in the cathedral of Piacenza, and sketched also under a Crucifixion at Ferrara: these have ever been regarded in that school as models of the sublime. Nevertheless, if we examine the "Assumption," at the Teresiani, the "Paradise," at the Barnabiti, or the "S. George," in which is represented that admirable virgin, who is seen seized with terror in the act of flight, it will be allowed that Annibal himself could not have exhibited more grace in his drawing of young maidens or of boys. More excelling, therefore, than great, Lodovico may be said to be transcendant in every character; and it would even seem that he had aimed at this boast in the two frescos that have perished, with which he decorated, at S. Domenico, the chapel of the Lambertini. In one he exhibited the holy founder, with S. Francis, in a manner very easy and pleasing to the eye, with few lights and as few shades, but both powerful, and with few folds in the drapery; the countenances full of piety; insomuch that the whole performance, in the words of Malvasia, "rose to a pitch of grandeur not to be excelled." In the other piece he represented "Charity," in a style equally soft, graceful, and polished, and which was subsequently, says the historian, esteemed "the model and the rule of modern painting." He proceeds to relate, that Albani, Guido, and Domenichino all derived their sweetness from this source, in the same way, most probably, that Cavedoni took his first style from the S. Domenico; and from his Paul at the Conventuali Guercino acquired his grand power of chiaroscuro. In short, if we may give credit to history, Lodovico in his own school ranks like Homer among the Greeks, fons ingeniorum. Individual artists in him have recognized what constituted the character of their own knowledge, because in every branch of painting he was truly profound.[24]
The masterly dignity of his character appears to most advantage in the cloister of S. Michele in Bosco, where, assisted by his pupils, he represented the actions of St. Benedict and St. Cecilia in thirty-seven separate histories. By his hand is the Conflagration of Mount Cassino, and some other portions; the remaining parts are by Guido, by Tiarini, by Massari, by Cavedoni, by Spada, by Garbieri, by Brizio, and other young artists. These paintings have been engraved, and are worthy of the reformers of that age. On beholding what we may term this gallery by different hands, we should be almost inclined to bestow upon the school of Lodovico this trite eulogy; that from it, as from the Trojan horse, there issued only princes. What does him still more honour is, that his relatives themselves, down to the least and last, uniformly venerated him as a preceptor, insomuch that Annibal, on the completion of the Farnese gallery, invited him to Rome, as the adviser, arbiter, and umpire of that work. He remained there less than two weeks, and then returning to his beloved Bologna, he survived Agostino seventeen years, and Annibal ten. Being separated from the two cousins, he employed himself at an advanced age in a manner less studied, but still exemplary and masterly. Nor ought a few slight inaccuracies of design to detract from the praise due to him, inaccuracies which he fell into about this period, as in the drawing of the hand of the Redeemer, in the act of calling St. Matthew to follow him, or in the foot of the Madonna of the Annunciation painted at S. Pietro, a fault which he saw too late, and it may be added, for which he died of affliction. Other less well founded criticisms advanced against him by a traveller have been fully rebutted and confuted by the Can. Crespi.[25]
Agostino, occupied for the most part in engraving, painted but little, this employment supplying him at once with the means of subsistence, and of shining in the class of artists. Doubtless painting here sustained a loss, deprived of a genius equally calculated as his relations to promote the art. His powers of invention surpassed those of the other Caracci, and many rank him foremost in point of design. It is certain that in his engraving he corrected and improved upon the outlines of his originals. On his return from Venice he applied himself more effectually to colouring, and succeeded in that of a horse, so far as to deceive the living animal, a triumph so much celebrated in Apelles. He once competed with his brother Annibal for an altar-piece intended for the church of the Carthusians. His design was preferred; and it was then that in his Communion of S. Girolamo he produced one of the most celebrated pictures of which Bologna can boast. Nothing can be imagined finer than the expression of devotion in the aged saint, the piety of the priest at the communion, the looks of the spectators, who support the dying, who catch his last accents, committing them instantly to writing, lest they escape; countenances finely varied and animated, each breathing and speaking, as it were, peculiar mind. On its first exhibition, the pupils thronged around the picture to make their studies, insomuch that Annibal, urged by jealousy, assumed more of his brother's taste, becoming more select and slow, contriving further to addict his brother to engraving; a plan in which he succeeded. He returned, as a painter, to Rome; and the fine representation of Poetry, so much admired in the Farnese gallery, was, in great part, owing to his talent; and the same may be said of the fables of Cephalus and Galatea, exquisitely graceful productions, which seem dictated by a poet, and executed by a Greek artist. Hence it was rumoured that in the Farnesian paintings the engraver had surpassed the painter; at which Annibal, no longer able to subdue his envy, removed his brother from the undertaking under a variety of false pretences; nor was any humility on the part of Agostino, any advice of his elders, or any mediation of the great, sufficient to appease him. Quitting Rome, Agostino entered into the service of the Duke of Parma, for whom he painted Celestial Love, Terrestrial Love, and Venal Love, to adorn one of the halls, a very beautiful work, which he terminated only just before his death. A single figure remained wanting, and this the duke would never consent to have supplied by any other hand. At the point of death he was seized with lively remorse, on account of his many licentious engravings and prints, and even wept bitterly. At that period he designed a picture of the Last Judgment, which, however, he was unable to complete. In the account of his funeral, and in the oration recited on that occasion by Lucio Faberio, mention is made of a head of Jesus Christ, in the character of the universal judge, painted at that time, though unfinished, upon a black ground. Such a head is pointed out in the Albani palace at Rome, and duplicates exist elsewhere. In the features we see exhibited all that is at once most majestic and most terrible within the limits of the human imagination.
Annibal was greatly celebrated in Lombardy in every peculiar taste which he chose to pursue. In his earliest works Mengs declares that he traces the appearance, but not the depth and reality of Coreggio's style; but it is an appearance so extremely plausible, that it compels us to pronounce him one of the most perfect imitators of that consummate master. His Taking down from the Cross, at the church of the Capuccini in Parma, may challenge the most distinguished followers of the Parmese School. His picture of S. Rocco is still more celebrated, comprising the perfections of different artists, a piece engraved in aqua forte by Guido Reni. It was executed for Reggio, thence transferred to Modena, and from the last place to Dresden. He represented the saint, standing near a portico on a basement, and dispensing his wealth to poor mendicants; a composition not so very rich in figures as in knowledge of the art. A throng of paupers, as different in point of infirmity as in age and sex, is admirably varied, both in the grouping and the gestures. One is seen receiving with gratitude, another impatiently expecting, a third counting his alms with delight; every object is misery and humiliation, and yet every thing seems to display the abundance and dignity of the artist. But proceeding to Rome in the year 1600, he entered on another career; "he checked his fire," observes Mengs, "he improved the extravagance of his forms, imitated Raffaello and the ancients, retaining at the same time a portion of the style of Coreggio to support dignity." (Tom.ii. p. 19.) Albano makes use of nearly the same words in a letter given by Bellori, (p. 44,) adding, that Annibal, in the opinion of competent judges, "far surpassed his cousin, from a knowledge of the works of Raffaello, in addition to that of the most beautiful ancient statues." He was there employed in various churches, though his crowning effort, and nearly the whole foundation of the art, as restored by his means, are to be sought for in the Farnese palace. The subjects were selected by Monsig. Agucchi; and together with the allegories may be read in Bellori. In a small chamber he gave representations of the Virtues, such as his Choice of Hercules, Hercules sustaining the World, Ulysses the Liberator; in the gallery various fables of Virtuous Love, such as those of Arion and Prometheus; with others of Venal Love, among which a wonderful figure of a Bacchanal is one of the most conspicuous. The work is admirably distributed and varied with ovals, cornices, and with a variety of ornamental figures, sometimes in stucco, at others in chiaroscuro, where the effect of his assiduous studies of the Farnesian Hercules is very apparent, as well as of the torso of the Belvidere, which he accurately designed, without even having the model before him. The whole of the other parts breathe Attic elegance combined with Raffaellesque grace, and imitations not only of his own Tibaldi but of Bonarruoti himself, no less than all the sprightly and the powerful added to the art by the Venetians and Lombards. This was the earliest production, where, as in Pandora's box, all the geniuses of the Italian schools united their several gifts; and in its fit place I described the astonishment created by it at Rome, with the revolution it occasioned in the whole art.
On account of this work he is ranked by Mengs next after the three leading masters in the fourth degree, and even esteemed supereminent in regard to the form of his virile figures. Poussin asserts, that after Raffaello there were no better compositions than these, and he prefers the decorative heads and figures already mentioned, with the other naked forms, in which the artist was said to have surpassed himself, even to his fables so beautifully painted. To him Baglione refers the method of colouring from nature, which was nearly lost, as well as the true art of landscape-painting, afterwards imitated by the Flemish. To these might likewise be added the use of caricatures, which no one better than he knew how to copy from nature, and to increase with ideal power. In the Roman galleries many of Annibal's pictures are to be met with, conducted in this new style; and there is one in the Lancellotti palace, small, and painted a colla,[26] rivalling, I had almost said, the best pieces of Ercolani. It is a Pan teaching Apollo to play upon the pipe; figures at once designed, coloured, and disposed with the hand of a great master. They are so finely expressive, that we see in the countenance of the youth, humility, and apprehension of committing an error; and in that of the old man, turning another way, peculiar attention to the sound, his pleasure in possessing such a pupil, and his anxiety to conceal from him his real opinion, lest he might happen to grow vain.[27]
No other pieces so exquisitely finished are found by his hand at Bologna, where there prevails the same strong party, commenced in the time of the Caracci, and which prefers Lodovico to Annibal. When we reflect that Annibal, in addition to the patrimony left by his school, conferred upon it the riches which the genius of the Greeks, throughout many ages and many places had collected to adorn their style; when we reflect on the progress, which, on observing his new style at Rome, was made by Domenichino, Guido, Albano, Lanfranco, with the new light which it afforded to Algardi, according to the supposition of Passeri, in respect to sculpture, and the improvement which by his means took place in the very pleasing and attractive painting of Flanders and of Holland, we feel inclined to coincide with the general sentiment entertained beyond the limits of Bologna, that Annibal was the most eminent artist of his family. At the same time we may allow, that Agostino was the greater genius, and Lodovico, to whom we are indebted for both, the greater teacher of these three. As such, too, the learned Ab. Magnani, librarian and lecturer upon eloquence to the institution, assigns to him the office of teacher, in an able oration upon the fine arts, printed at Parma by Bodoni, along with others by the same author.
The three Caracci may be almost said to define the boundaries of the golden age of painting in Italy. They are her last sovereign masters, unless we are willing to admit a few of their select pupils, who extended that period during the space of some years. Excellent masters, doubtless, flourished subsequently; but after their decease, the powers of such artists appearing less elevated and less solid, we begin to hear complaints respecting the decline of the art. Nor were there wanting those who contended for a secondary age of silver, dating from Guido down to the time of Giordano, as well on account of the minor merit of the artists, as for the prices, so much greater than formerly, which Guido introduced into the art. The Caracci themselves had been only scantily remunerated. Count Malvasia admits this fact, not omitting to point out the small dwelling, and to describe the narrow circumstances in which Lodovico died, while his two relatives left the world still more impoverished than himself. The Caracci, moreover, did not, like other painters, leave legitimate sons to perpetuate their school; they never married, and were accustomed to observe that the art was sole partner of their thoughts. And this beloved mistress they adored and served with a love so passionate, as to abandon almost all worldly care for themselves. Even while sitting at their meals they had the implements of their art before them; and wherever they observed an action or gesture adapted to adorn it, they took instant note of it. And to this their free estate, more than to any other cause, were they indebted for their noble progress and improvement. Had they "taken to themselves a wife," how easily would their agreeable friendship and attachment, from which each of the three derived light and knowledge from the rest, have been broken in upon by tattling and trifles beneath their care. Most probably, too, it might have occasioned too great rapidity of hand, at the expense of study; such at least having been the result with regard to many, who, to indulge a woman's taste, or to provide for the wants of a family, have addicted themselves to carelessness and despatch. At the period, then, of the decease of the two cousins, and the advanced age of Lodovico, there remained of the family only two youths, one, named Francesco, at Bologna, the other, Antonio, in Rome.
Francesco was a younger brother of Agostino and Annibal. Confiding in his connexions and in his own talent, excellent in point of design, and reasonably good in colouring, he ventured to oppose a school of his own to that of Lodovico, his master, inscribing upon the door: "This is the true school of the Caracci." He enjoyed no reputation at Bologna, but was rather held in dislike, on account of his opposition to and detraction of Lodovico, to whom he owed what little he executed at that place, namely, an altar-piece, with various saints, at S. Maria Maggiore, the whole of which had been retouched by his kind and able cousin. Having gone to Rome, he was first received with applause, but becoming better known he was soon despised; and, without leaving a single specimen of his pencil, he died there in his twenty-seventh year, in the hospital. Antonio Caracci, a natural son of Agostino, and pupil to Annibal, was of a totally different disposition. Prudent, affectionate, and grateful to his relatives, he received Annibal's last sighs at Rome, bestowed upon him a splendid funeral in the same church of the Rotonda, where Raffaello's remains had been exhibited, and deposited his ashes at the side of that great artist. He survived, a valetudinarian, during some years, and died at the age of thirty-five, in Rome, where he left some works in the pontifical palace, and at S. Bartolommeo. They are rarely met with in cabinets, though I saw one in Genoa, a Veronica, in possession of the Brignole family. Bellori Had written his life, which, although now lost, leads to the supposition that he possessed great merit, inasmuch as that writer confined himself to the commemoration of only first rate artists. Baldassare Aloisi, called Galanino, a kinsman and scholar of the Caracci, yielded to few of his fellow-pupils in his compositions. His picture of the Visitation, at the church of the Carità in Bologna, so much extolled by Malvasia, to say nothing of various other pictures, executed at Rome, and favourably recorded by Baglione, affords ample proofs of it. His fortune, however, was not equal to his merit; so that he wholly devoted himself to portraiture, and as we have stated, in the Roman School, he there for some period boasted the chief sway in the branch of portraits, which were uniformly characterized by great power and strong relief.