CARRACCI, Annibale (b. 1560, Bologna, d. 1609, Roma) |
Venus with a Satyr and Cupidsc. 1588Oil on canvas, 112 x142 cm Galleria degli Uffizi, Florence | ||
Acquired in 1620 for the Medici collections, this painting, which was already famous in the 17th century, was for moral reasons covered over with another canvas of a more chaste allegorical subject through most of the 18th century. The recovery of the original in 1812 has restored to us a work of great importance in Annibale Carracci's youthful development. If we are to believe the date, 1588, written on the back of an old copy, the painting falls in a decisive year for the young painter: the time, that is, of his evolution from late Mannerist Bolognese culture, already enriched by Correggio, towards the colour-light sysnthesis of Titian and Veronese, from which would emerge the neo-Venetianism at the foundation of the Carraccesque "reform". Venus's astonishing flesh tones blush voluptuously at her pressed glutei, a popular motif and proof of the painter's skill.
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