Annibale Carraccis Visual Wit Essays - Annibale Carracci, Nude Art

Annibale Carracci's Visual Wit Bethany Chapman ARH 4350 001 42083: Baroque Art History Professor Fenichel March 20, 2018 During the latter part of the sixteenth century many educated men would meet in salons to talk about many scholarly topics. A main meeting place of these men was that of the Carracci studio in Bologna, where in place of educated topics they would talk of gossip and jest. Annibale Carracci, the younger of the Carracci brothers, was not as masterful in verbal wit as these men were, so he instead turned to painting. So, through his own paintings of Saint Sebastian, River Landscape and Venus, a Satyr, and Two Amorini, Annibale Carracci became known as a distinguished pictorial humorist of the late sixteenth century. In his rendition of Saint Sebastian Annibale Carracci took his pictorial humor one step further by adding in a subliminal erotic message to the piece. Saint Sebastian is usually depicted with my arrows piecing through his torso and has a deathly pallor about him, instead of following what other artists, such as Reni or Honthorst, Carracci depicts Sebastian as fully nude with only a single arrow piercing his side. In order to cover Saint Sebastian's private parts Carracci "skillfully" places the arrow so the shaft and the feathers/penne[1] lay completely cover his decency. The arrow becomes a visual jest because it covers everything but reveals everything at the same time. Carracci further explored the act of omitting the main narrative of the story to make up the main narrative of the story. In his painting River Landscape, he depicts a boat with couples in it who are seemingly having a pleasant ride down the river but, Annibale places a large tree that goes through the composition and blocks the viewers line of sight of part of the boat. This entices the viewer's thoughts that everything is not what it seems and that couples might be up to something immoral.[2] Continuing with his style of emphasizing what the viewer cannot see Carracci depicts a scene in the work Venus, a Satyr, and Two Amorini where a satyr is gazing upon the goddess who has her back turned to the viewer. The satyr's gaze is wide and he is practically drooling while looking at the goddess front side. This entices the viewer to imagine what exactly the satyr is seeing or not seeing, because some say that Annibale's cousin Ludovico posed as the goddess for this painting.[3] The amorino[4] on the lower left corner is perched between the goddess's legs and has his head up and is licking his lips, which is imagined to be that the amorino has just delved into oral pleasure with the goddess.[5] Within this article the author, Patricia Simons, almost praises Carracci for his wit and humorous undertones that he places into his works. She engages the reader with thought provoking facts that go in depth but, also lets the reader make their own assumptions about Carracci as an artist, she also gives many good sources to look at and go to if the reader chooses to do so. She doesn't pick a side or argument per say in her article, she mainly just states what she has observed and researched for her own about Carracci's humorous works. There is a lot of information within this article that one would not usually learn in a typical classroom setting. In many classes Annibale Carracci is only touched upon briefly but, this article brings so much more to light and spreads great knowledge and understanding to those who did not know much about this topic. A reaction from this article is one of intrigue and interest based on first time learning about satirical and mildly erotic paintings from the late sixteenth century. Controversy is a big deal when talking about this topic because, of the topic itself and the fact that Annibale is borderline making fun of Saints and goddesses in his works. Giving a phallic symbol to a saint who is being martyred is not the normal thing for an upstanding citizen to do. Another humorous thing is that this was all started around men and basically based upon the male sense of humor, which includes a lot of sexual and phallic jokes. But, this just goes to show that the people of the late sixteenth century enjoyed humor and underlying sexual messages just like the people today do. For an article as short as this one Patricia does include many interesting footnotes that lead to many interesting articles that