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The Loves of the Gods (Carracci)

 

 
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The Loves of the Gods (Carracci)
 
 
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The Loves of the Gods is a massive fresco
Fresco

Fresco is any of several related painting types, done on plaster on walls or ceilings. The word fresco comes from the Italian word affresco which derives from the adjective fresco , which has Latin origins....
 cycle completed by Annibale Carracci
Annibale Carracci

Annibale Carracci was an Italian Baroque Painting....
 and his studio in the Palazzo Farnese (now the French Embassy) in Rome
Rome

Rome is the capital city of Italy and Lazio, and is Italy's largest and most populous city, with 2,724,347 residents in an urban area of some ....
. The fresco series was greatly admired in its time, and was later felt to reflect a change in aesthetic in Rome from Mannerism
Mannerism

Mannerism is a Art periods of European art which emerged from the later years of the Italian High Renaissance around 1520. It lasted until about 1580 in Italy, when a more Baroque style began to replace it, but continued into the seventeenth century throughout much of Europe....
 to Baroque
Baroque

In the the arts, the Baroque was a Western cultural Epoch , starting roughly at the beginning of the 17th century in Rome, Italy. It was exemplified by drama and grandeur in Baroque sculpture, Baroque painting, literature, Baroque dance, and Baroque music....
.

inal Odoardo Farnese
Odoardo Farnese

Odoardo Farnese was Duke of Parma and Piacenza from 1622 to 1646.Odoardo was the sole legitimate son of Ranuccio I Farnese, Duke of Parma and Margherita Aldobrandini....
, Pope Paul III
Pope Paul III

Pope Paul III , born Alessandro Farnese, was Pope of the Roman Catholic Church from 1534 to his death in 1549. He also called the Council of Trent in 1545....
's nephew, commissioned Annibale and his crew to decorate the barrel-vaulted gallery in the piano nobile of the family palace.






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The Loves of the Gods is a massive fresco
Fresco

Fresco is any of several related painting types, done on plaster on walls or ceilings. The word fresco comes from the Italian word affresco which derives from the adjective fresco , which has Latin origins....
 cycle completed by Annibale Carracci
Annibale Carracci

Annibale Carracci was an Italian Baroque Painting....
 and his studio in the Palazzo Farnese (now the French Embassy) in Rome
Rome

Rome is the capital city of Italy and Lazio, and is Italy's largest and most populous city, with 2,724,347 residents in an urban area of some ....
. The fresco series was greatly admired in its time, and was later felt to reflect a change in aesthetic in Rome from Mannerism
Mannerism

Mannerism is a Art periods of European art which emerged from the later years of the Italian High Renaissance around 1520. It lasted until about 1580 in Italy, when a more Baroque style began to replace it, but continued into the seventeenth century throughout much of Europe....
 to Baroque
Baroque

In the the arts, the Baroque was a Western cultural Epoch , starting roughly at the beginning of the 17th century in Rome, Italy. It was exemplified by drama and grandeur in Baroque sculpture, Baroque painting, literature, Baroque dance, and Baroque music....
.

Production

Cardinal Odoardo Farnese
Odoardo Farnese

Odoardo Farnese was Duke of Parma and Piacenza from 1622 to 1646.Odoardo was the sole legitimate son of Ranuccio I Farnese, Duke of Parma and Margherita Aldobrandini....
, Pope Paul III
Pope Paul III

Pope Paul III , born Alessandro Farnese, was Pope of the Roman Catholic Church from 1534 to his death in 1549. He also called the Council of Trent in 1545....
's nephew, commissioned Annibale and his crew to decorate the barrel-vaulted gallery in the piano nobile of the family palace. Work was started in 1597 and ended in 1608. The studio involved were led by Annibale, and later briefly his brother Agostino
Agostino Carracci

Agostino Carracci was an Italy Painting and printmaker. He was the brother of the more famous Annibale Carracci and cousin of Lodovico Carracci....
, included a number of significant artists, such as Francesco Albani
Francesco Albani

Francesco Albani or Albano was an Italy Baroque Painting....
, Guido Reni
Guido Reni

Guido Reni was a prominent Italy Painting of high-Baroque style....
, Domenichino, and Sisto Badalocchio
Sisto Badalocchio

Sisto Badalocchio Rosa was an Italy Painting and engraver of the Bolognese School .Born in Parma, he worked first under Agostino Carracci in Bologna, then Annibale Carracci, in Rome....
. The consists of profusely decorated quadratura and framed mythologic scenes.

Scheme

Annibale had first decorated a small room (the Camerino
Camerino

Camerino is small town of 7,000 inhabitants in the Marches , in the province of Macerata, Italy. It is located in the Apennine Mountains bordering Umbria, between the valleys of the rivers Potenza and Chienti, about 40 miles from Ancona....
) in the Palazzo with scenes from the life of Hercules
Hercules

Hercules is the Ancient Rome name for the mythical Ancient Greece hero Heracles, son of Zeus and the mortal Alcmene. Early Roman sources suggest that the imported Greek hero supplanted a mythic Italian shepherd called "Recaranus" or "Garanus", famous for his strength....
, likely to enhance the viewing of the famed Roman statue of the Farnese Hercules
Farnese Hercules

The Farnese Hercules is an ancient sculpture, probably an enlarged copy made in the early third century AD by Glykon of an original of Lysippos or one of his circle, of the fourth century BC., made for the Baths of Caracalla in Rome , where it was recovered in 1546....
. In 1597, he began to decorate the gallery with mythological themes set within frames painted on an illusionistic architectural framework (quadratura). Ignudi
Sistine Chapel ceiling

The Sistine Chapel ceiling, painted by Michelangelo between 1508 and 1512, is one of the most renowned artworks of the Renaissance painting. The ceiling is that of the large Sistine Chapel built within the Vatican City by Pope Sixtus IV, begun in 1477 and finished by 1480....
, putti, and herms (male caryatid
Caryatid

A caryatid is a sculpted female figure serving as an architectural support taking the place of a column or a pillar supporting an entablature on her head....
 figures) hold up the painted framework. Bellori, a noted art critic of the next generation called it "Human Love Governed by Celestial Love".

In the center panel, the depicts a both riotous and classically restrained procession which ferries Bacchus
Dionysus

In classical mythology, Dionysus or Dionysos , is the God of wine, the inspirer of ritual madness and ecstasy, and a major figure of Greek mythology, and one of the twelve Olympians, among whom Greek mythology treated Dionysus as a late arrival....
 and Ariadne
Ariadne

Ariadne, in Greek mythology , was daughter of Monarch Minos of Crete and his queen, Pasipha?, daughter of Helios, the Sun-titan. She aided Theseus in overcoming the Minotaur and later became the bride of the god Dionysus....
 to their lovers' bed. Here, the underlying myth is that Bacchus, the god of wine, had gained the love of the abandoned princess, Ariadne. In the Republican and Imperial Roman era, triumph
Roman triumph

A Roman triumph was a civil religion and religious rite of ancient Rome, held to publically celebrate the achievements of an army commander who had won great military successes, originally and traditionally, who had successfully completed a war....
s were parades by victorious leaders, wherein a laureled-crowned imperator was led by a white chariot led by two white horses. The two lovers are led by chariots drawn by tigers and a parade of nymphs, bacchanti, and trumpeting satyrs. At the fore, Bacchus' tutor, the paunchy, ugly, and leering drunk Silenus, rides an ass. The figures carefully cavort in order to hide most naked male genitals. The program may refer to Ovid's Metamorphosis (VIII; lines 160-182) or a trifling carnival song
Carnival song

A carnival song or canto carnascialesco was a late fifteenth- and early sixteenth-century song used to celebrate the carnival season in Florence, mainly the weeks preceding Lent and the Calendimaggio, which lasted from May 1 to June 24....
-poem written by Lorenzo de Medici in about 1475, that entreats:

Quest’è Bacco ed Arïanna, Here are Bacchus and Ariadne,
belli, e l’un de l’altro ardenti: Handsome, and burning for each other:
perché ’l tempo fugge e inganna, Because time flees and fools,
sempre insieme stan contenti. They stay together always content.
Queste ninfe ed altre gentiThese nymphs and other gents
sono allegre tuttavia. Are ever full of joy.
Chi vuol esser lieto, sia: Let those who wish to be happy, be:
di doman non c’è certezza. Of tomorrow, we have no certainty.


The painter's cousin Ludovico Carracci
Ludovico Carracci

Ludovico Carracci was an Italy, early-Baroque painter, etcher, and printmaker born in Bologna.Ludovico himself apprenticed under Prospero Fontana in Bologna and traveled to Florence, Parma, and Venice, before returning to his hometown....
 engraved uncensored versions in prints
Old master print

An old master print is a work of art produced by a printing process within the Western tradition . A date of about 1830 is usually taken as marking the end of the period whose prints are covered by this term....
 of the scenes. Also in contrast to the ceiling's intimation rather than outright depiction of mythological lovemaking
Sexual intercourse

Sexual intercourse, also known as copulation or coitus, commonly refers to the act in which the Penis enters the Vagina. The two entities may be of opposite sexes or not, or they may be hermaphrodite, as is the case with snails....
 are erotic engravings
Agostino Carracci

Agostino Carracci was an Italy Painting and printmaker. He was the brother of the more famous Annibale Carracci and cousin of Lodovico Carracci....
 by the painter's brother Agostino - the I Modi
I Modi

I Modi also known as The Sixteen Pleasures or under the Latin title De omnibus Veneris Schematibus, is a famous, essentially lost Erotic art book of the Italian Renaissance....
.

Critical Assessment and Legacy

After completing the Farnese frescoes, Annibale reportedly entered a long depression, and none of his subsequent works were considered as noteworthy. His influence for the future aesthetic of the fresco would be powerful. The density of figures would fuel debates in the next generation of fresco painters, Sacchi
Andrea Sacchi

Andrea Sacchi was an Italy Painting of High Baroque Classicism, active in Rome. A generation of artists who shared his style of art include the painters Nicolas Poussin and Giovanni Battista Passeri, the sculptors Alessandro Algardi and Fran?ois Duquesnoy, and the contemporary biographer Giovanni Bellori....
 and Cortona
Pietro da Cortona

Pietro da Cortona, byname of Pietro Berrettini was an Italian artist and architect of High Baroque. He is best known for painting fresco ceilings, a pursuit in which he had ample competition in the Rome of his day, but he was equally adept and masterful with architectural design....
; clearly, as this fresco indicates, Carracci's effervescent manner influenced Cortona.

Carracci, in his day, was seen as one of the painters that revived the classical style. Rebellious artists such as Caravaggio
Caravaggio

Michelangelo Merisi da Caravaggio, was an Italian people artist active in Rome, Naples, Malta and Sicily between 1593 and 1610, considered the first great representative of the Baroque school of painting....
 and his followers would in few years abandon the sunny background, and the representation of mythology in their art. But it would be inappropriate to view Carracci as solely the continuation of an inherited tradition; in his day, his vigorous and dynamic style, and that of his trainees, changed the pre-eminent aesthetic of Rome. His work would have been seen as liberating for artists of his day, touching on pagan themes with an unconstrained joy. It could be said that while Mannerism
Mannerism

Mannerism is a Art periods of European art which emerged from the later years of the Italian High Renaissance around 1520. It lasted until about 1580 in Italy, when a more Baroque style began to replace it, but continued into the seventeenth century throughout much of Europe....
 had mastered the art of formal strained contraposto and contorsion; Carracci had depicted dance and joy.

Neoclassic formalism and severity frowned on the excesses of Carracci; but in his day, he would have been seen as masterful, as the supreme approximation to classic beauty. Carracci painted in the tradition of Raphael
Raphael

Raphael Sanzio, usually known by his first name alone was an Italy Painting and architect of the High Renaissance, celebrated for the perfection and grace of his paintings and drawings....
 and Giulio Romano
Giulio Romano

Giulio Romano was an Italy Painting and Architecture. A prominent pupil of Raffaello Santi, his stylistic deviations from high Renaissance classicism help define the 16th-century style known as Mannerism....
's secular Galatea
Galatea (Raphael)

The Triumph of Galatea is a fresco masterpiece completed in 1512 by the Italy painter Raphael for the Villa Farnesina in Rome.The Farnesina was built for the Siena banker Agostino Chigi, one of the richest men of that age....
 frescoes in the Loggia of the Villa Farnesina
Villa Farnesina

Villa Farnesina is an artistically and architecturally influential Renaissance villa in Via della Lungara, in the central district of Trastevere in Rome....
 . Unlike Raphael though, they display a Michelangelo
Michelangelo

Michelangelo di Lodovico Buonarroti Simoni , commonly known as Michelangelo, was an Italian Renaissance Painting, sculptor, architect, poet, and engineer....
-esque muscularity, and depart from the often emotionless visages of High Renaissance painting. Finally, it has been said that Carracci and his school blended Venetian colorism with the Florentine-Umbrian attention to drawing and design; yet this is best seen in the oil canvases rather than frescoes in the Farnese, which required for Carracci and intensive degree of drawn preplaning and attention, much of which still exists.

Thomas Hoving
Thomas Hoving

Thomas P. F. Hoving , is an American museum executive and consultant and the former director of the Metropolitan Museum of Art....
, later director of the Metropolitan Museum of Art
Metropolitan Museum of Art

The Metropolitan Museum of Art is an art museum located on the eastern edge of Central Park, along what is known as Museum Mile, New York City in New York City, USA....
, wrote his PhD on the cycle, pointing out many correspondences between the frescoes and items in the famous Farnese collection of Roman sculpture, much of which was then housed in the gallery (it is now in Naples
Naples

Naples is a city in southern Italy, the capital of the region of Campania and of the province of Naples. The city is known for its rich history, art, culture and gastronomy, playing an important role throughout much of its existence; it is over 2,800 years old....
, mostly in the Museo di Capodimonte
Museo di Capodimonte

The Palace and Museum of Capodimonte is a grand House of Bourbon palazzo in Naples, Italy, formerly the summer residence and hunting lodge of the kings of the Two Sicilies....
). His suggestion that many details of the fresoes were designed to compliment the marbles below has been generally accepted.

Visiting the Farnese Gallery

To visit the gallery you must schedule a free appointment by phone or mail with the Servizio Culturale, French Embassy, Piazza Farnese 67, Rome 00186, Italy, Phone: 06-686011. Indicate when you wish to visit and provide a local phone number to receive confirmation a few days prior to your visit.

Panels of Farnese Ceiling

  • Central Ceiling Fresco
    Triumph of Bacchus and Ariadne
  • Ceiling Scenes
    Bedding Scenes
    Jove beds Juno
    Venus, Cupid, and Anchise (father of Aeneas) (Genus Latinum)
    Crescent-crowned Diane and Endymion
    Hercules with tambourine and Iole with Club
    Other
    Europa and the Bull (Jupiter)
    Aurora abducts Cephalus in her Chariot
    Peleus abducts the Nereid Tethys
    The Cyclops Polyphemus and the Nereid Galatea
    The Cyclops Polyphemus Throws a Boulder at Fleeing Acis (and Galatea)
    Ganymede and the Eagle (Jupiter)
    Apollo abducts Hyacinth Skyward
    Pan and Diana
    Mercury Brings golden Apple to Paris
  • Wall Scenes
    Peseus rescues Andromeda from the Dragon
    Perseus turns Phineas and followers to stone using the head of Medusa
    The Virgin and the Unicorn
    Icarus and Dedalus
    Diane is shown the Jupiter-impregnated Callisto
    Metamorphosis of Callisto into a Bear
    Mercury and Apollo
    Arion the Citharist is rescued by Dolphins
    Minerva and Prometheus
    Hercules slays the Dragon
    Hercules liberates Prometheus


External links


  • A paraphrased copy decorates the ceiling of the Blue Drawing Room at West Wycombe Park
    West Wycombe Park

    West Wycombe Park is a English country house near the village of West Wycombe in Buckinghamshire, England built between 1740 and 1800. It was conceived as a pleasure palace for the 18th century libertine and wikt:dilettante Sir Francis Dashwood, 15th Baron le Despencer....
     in England.