FOR 2-9

GUERCINO: MIND TO PAPER AT COURTAULD FROM FEB 22 w/2 cuts emailed

wd/gs set 1-24 #685606

LONDON — “Guercino: Mind of Paper” will be on view at the Courtauld Institute of Art Gallery February 22–May 13. Giovanni Francesco Barbieri (1591–1666), nicknamed Guercino (“squinter”) after a childhood incident left him cross-eyed, is regarded as one of the most significant Italian artists of the Baroque period.

A prolific and fluent draughtsman who was known as “the Rembrandt of the South,” he was hailed for his inventive approach to subject matter, his deftness of touch and ability to capture drama and movement.

The exhibition reflects the artist’s extraordinary technical and stylistic versatility, and is the second joint exhibition to be organized as part of the Courtauld Institute of Art’s ongoing collaboration with the J. Paul Getty Museum, Los Angeles. It is focused around an important group of 26 drawings from the collection of Sir Robert Witt, bequeathed to the Courtauld in 1952. A number still retain the distinctive patterned “Casa Gennari” mounts that originate from the studio of Guercino’s nephews and studio assistants, Benedetto and Cesare Gennari, to whom he left his entire stock of drawings.

Guercino spent almost his whole life close to his birthplace of Cento near Ferrara, and in Bologna, but his reputation was cemented in Rome while he was working for the court of Pope Gregory XV between 1621 and 1623. After returning to northern Italy, he ran a busy and successful workshop where he made hundreds of paintings over the course of his career. His works were sought after internationally but he turned down invitations to become a court artist in both London and Paris, probably to stay close to his family.

The driving force behind Guercino’s artistic success was his skill as a draughtsman. The works in the exhibition have been specifically chosen to demonstrate the artist’s wide-ranging choice of subject matter and his remarkable technical and compositional skills.

Much of Guercino’s early experience came from life drawing. He drew incessantly, recording the world around him and examining scenes from every conceivable angle, as can be seen in the tender “Child seen from behind, standing between his mother’s knees.” As with this drawing, he would often zoom in on a part of the whole composition, leaving large areas comparatively unworked. Frequently he used “closeup” studies to examine the relationships between significant characters and to study their facial expressions.

A prominent feature of Guercino’s drawing technique is his varied use of media. Goose feather pen dipped in ink was his favorite medium, and this direct technique enabled him to record his fleeting ideas on paper quickly and easily, most notably evident in “Cupid restraining Mars.” Numerous pentimenti (minor changes), such as the five exploratory ideas for the sword, are evidence of the speed and energy with which this drawing was executed.

Texture plays a significant role in Guercino’s expressive draughtsmanship, most obviously in “Two women drying their hair,” in which loosely applied brown wash is used to describe cascading wet tresses, while the dryer ends of hair consist of strokes of the brush “starved” of wash. His sensitivity to light and shade is apparent in all the works on display, in many of which powerful dark brown ink and wash passages predominate — a method he often used to draw attention to intricate hairstyles and headdresses and to accentuate parts of the body, fleshy contours in particular, as seen in “Bathseheba attended by her maid.”

The exhibition is accompanied by a fully illustrated catalog by Dr Julian Brooks, assistant curator of drawings at the J. Paul Getty Museum, a specialist in Italian Sixteenth and Seventeenth Century drawings. As well as catalog entries, the text includes a biography of the artist, notes on the provenance of Sir Robert Witt’s collection of Guercino drawings and a chapter characterizing the artist’s unique style and process of drawing.

Courtauld Institute of Art Gallery is at Somerset House, Strand. For information, www.courtauld.ac.uk or 20 7848 2526.