Details

Name

Giovanni Francesco (Guercino) Barbieri

Brief Biography

1591–1666

Occupation

Painter

Description

One of the leading followers of the Carracci, Guercino (so named because of his squint) began his career in his native Cento, a small town in the duchy of Ferrara. In 1621 he was summoned to Rome by a former patron, the Bolognese Pope Gregory XV, but returned to Cento when the Pope died two years later. In 1642, following the death of Guido Reni (qv), Guercino settled permanently in Bologna. During his career he was active above all as a painter of altarpieces and smaller devotional works. The naturalistic, sensuous and dramatically lit style of his early works gave way from the beginning of the 1620s to a sober and disciplined classicism, influenced by the example of the late Annibale Carracci and Domenichino (qv). Guercino is recognized as one of the finest Italian draughtsmen of the 1600s.