Background
Giovanni Francesco Barbieri was born on February 8, 1591 in Cento, a village between Bologna and Ferrara.
Giovanni Francesco Barbieri was born on February 8, 1591 in Cento, a village between Bologna and Ferrara.
He was self-taught.
By his irrational way of lighting, his gloomy backgrounds, and his large rustic types he seems akin to Caravaggio.
But while the latter defined bodies by sharp contours and modeled with vigor and a dramatic use of light and shadow, Guercino favored patchy light and a vaporous atmosphere around his figures and landscapes.
A follower of Ludovico Carracci, he developed a romantic chiaroscuro that dissolved sculptural form. From 1617 to 1621 Guercino resided in Bologna, where he painted his most original works. His point of departure was Ludovico's romanticism and religious emotion, as well as Lanfranco's atmospheric painting.
With his great altar pieces, like the Martyrdom of St. Peter (Modena), the Ecstasy of St. Francis (Louvre), the Return of the Prodigal Son (Turin), and the St. William Taking the Habit (Bologna), Guercino established his loose and "painterly" baroque manner.
his was based upon a dissolution of structural form by means of light which emphasized salient points, leaving others in impenetrable shadow; by diagonal movements into depth of space, which remained largely undefined; by asymmetrical composition; and by rich Venetian color.
Guercino visited Venice in 1618 and was deeply influenced by masters like Tintoretto and Jacopo Bassano.
In 1621 the Bolognese Cardinal Alessandro Ludovisi became Pope Gregory XV, and he patronized artists from his native city.
Guercino went to Rome and painted his famous Aurora in the Casino Ludovisi.
Already his huge altarpiece, the Burial of St. Petronilla (Capitoline Museum), showed signs of greater balance and definition, although the immediacy of its appeal, the force of the chiaroscuro, and the Venetian color are unimpaired.
The enormous vertical canvas contains two scenes.
In the near foreground the saint is lowered into her grave, while above she kneels before Christ and is received into Heaven.
nother Roman painting by Guercino is the Penitent Magdalena (Vatican), and here the contrite figure of the saint, comforted by angels, is made to harmonize with the dark, wooded landscape and the evening twilight. When Guercino returned to Cento after the death of Pope Gregory in 1623, his palette began to lighten and his youthful baroque manner underwent modifications in the classical direction, especially through the influence of Guido Reni, whose fame in nearby Bologna was at its height.
After Reni's death in 1642 Guercino inherited his position there.
The style of his later paintings became more conventional, in works like The Virgin Appearing to St. Bruno (Bologna), the Angel Appearing to Hagar and Ishmael (1652), and the Cumaean Sibyl (1651) (Mahon Collection, London).
These works are more elaborate and academic, refined in type, sumptuous in color, and more evenly lit, but they lack the impetuous romanticism of his early work.
He never married.