Carracci family

Family of Italian painters. Annibale Carracci (1560–1609) was prominent in Bologna and Rome in the movement against Mannerism. In the 1580s, with his brother and cousin, he founded a teaching academy in Bologna, the Accademia degli Incamminati (“Academy of the Progressives”). He specialized in fresco painting and monumental religious altarpieces but was also a pioneer in the development of ideal landscapes, genre subjects, and caricature. The fresco decoration of the Gallery of the Farnese Palace in Rome (1597–1601), comprising scenes from the loves of the gods, remains his masterpiece; it was indispensable as a source of figure design and technical procedure for young painters into the 18th century. His elder brother, Agostino Carracci (1557–1602), assisted him in decorating the Farnese Gallery but was known primarily as a teacher and engraver; his anatomical studies were used as teaching aids for nearly two centuries. His cousin Lodovico (or Ludovico) Carracci (1555–1619) collaborated with them on various fresco commissions. He directed the academy in Bologna after his cousins had gone to Rome, produced works of a passionate and poetic quality, and trained some of the major Bolognese artists of the next generation, including Domenichino, Guido Reni, and Alessandro Algardi. See also Bolognese school.

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