Giovanni Francesco Barbieri

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Template:Painting Giovanni Francesco Barbieri (February 8, 1591 — December 9, 1666), best known as Guercino, was an Italian Baroque painter

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Biography

Guercino was born at Cento, a village between Bologna and Ferrara.

By the age of 17 he was associated with Benedetto Gennari, a painter of the Bolognese School. By 1615 he moved to Bologna, where his work as a young man earned the praise of an elder Ludovico Carracci. He is known to have painted two large canvases in what appears to be a carravagista style (although it is unlikely he had been able to see any of the Roman Caravaggio's first-hand). The two canvases Elijah Fed by Ravens and Samson Seized by Philistines show stark naturalism and were painted for Cardinal Serra, Papal Legate to Ferrara. He was then recommended to Pope Gregory XV, from the Bolognese Ludovisi family, by Marchese Enzo Bentivogilo. In Rome, he painted frescoes at the Villa Ludovisi and San Crisogno. Guercino's portrait of the pope is in the Getty Museum. He also painted Cardinal Francesco Cennini (National Gallery of Art) papal legate to Ferrara . Saint Luke Displaying a Painting of the Madonna and Child (Nelson-Atkins Museum of Art, Kansas City). Payed 240 ducats for him for this painting by the Franciscan order of Reggio (1655). Flagellation of Christ Galleria Corsini painted 1657 for 300 ducats, initially held at Palazzo Chigi.

The Arcadian Shepherds (Et in Arcadia ego) was painted in 1618 contemporary with The Flaying of Masyras by Apollo in Palazzo Pitti. His first style was formed after Caracci. Some of his later pieces approach rather to the manner of his great contemporary Guido Reni, and are painted with more lightness and clearness. Guercino was esteemed very highly in his lifetime.

He was remarkable for the extreme rapidity of his execution - he completed no fewer than 106 large altar-pieces for churches, and his other paintings amount to about 144. His most famous piece is possibly the St. Petronilla Altarpiece, which was painted in Rome for Pope Gregory XV, the Bolognese Ludovisi pope. In 1626 he began his frescoes in the Duomo at Piacenza. Guercino continued to paint and teach up to the time of his death in 1666. He had amassed a handsome fortune.

Frescoes at Villa Ludovisi, and San Crisogono.

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