Annibale Carracci: Drawings & Paintings (Annotated)

Annibale Carracci (1560 - 1609) was an Italian painter and engraver. Along with Michelangelo Merisi da Caravaggio, he is considered the founder of Italian Baroque painting.In the 17th century, the critic Giovanni Bellori, in his study entitled Idea, praised Carracci as the supreme standard of the Italian painter, the one who had fostered the "renaissance" of the great tradition of Raphael and Michelangelo. Carracci has an incredibly eclectic thematic, painting landscapes, scenes, and portraits, including a series of self-portraits through time. He was one of the first Italian painters to produce canvases in which landscape had priority over figures, as in his masterful The Escape to Egypt. In this genre, Carracci was followed by Domenichino (his favorite pupil) and Lorraine.Carracci's art also has a less formal side, which appears in his caricatures and in his first paintings of the genre, which are remarkable for their lively observation and free movements, such as the work Butcher and the painting The Bean Eater. He is described by biographers as inattentive to clothing and obsessed with work.