In all that Ludovico painted, he showed profound knowledge of the principles of his art, graceful dignified design, and chaste colouring. His cousin, Augustine, painted very little; he was a good draughtsman, and carv ed in metal; he showed more talent in the invention of subject than in the execution of painting.
Hannibal Carracci had acquired a beautiful style of co louring from studying the works of Titian and Corregio. He obtained from the works of Raphael knowledge of correct and graceful design, to which he added the noble ness and grandeur of Angelo. He early showed his dis position for painting, and when still a boy, accompanying his father on a journey, they had the misfortune to be r bed, Hannibal drew portraits so resembling the ban ditti, that they were in consequence all taken and convict ed. His greatest works were the much admired paint ings of the Farnese Palace at Rome, in which the grace and elegance of Raphael's style is conspicuous; in fact, they hold a rank little inferior to Raphael's finest works. The whole cieling, of above sixty feet in length of the gallery, is occupied by seven great fresco paintings of IIannibal Carracci, representing the triumph of Bacchus and Ariadne, the story of Galatea, and a variety of other subjects of mythology, equalling in the magnitude of the undertaking the great labours of Raphael in the Vatican. The subjects are varied in the most skilful manner, and accompanied with innumerable smaller works, all of which are exquisite in taste and finishing. There is a degree of gaiety and graceful splendour diffused through every part of this painted creation, that is exceedingly fascinating. So multifarious and uniformly excellent are these works, that it would seem miraculous to have been the work of one man, and of but a short period of his life ; they have ever since been the chief study of succeeding artists. Hannibal Carracci was likewise exceedingly successful in the burlesque style of composition, of which there are some admirable examples in Rome. There is a picture of this description belonging to his pencil, namely, the Pan and Apollo, which we find we have by mistake placed among the works of ancient art, p. 290. To this may be added the very amusing collection of burlesques, called the " Ara di Bologna," which was the production chiefly of Hannibal Carracci.
Of the many distinguished artists who issued from the celebrated school of the Carracci, Dominechino deserves particularly to be mentioned, whose name was Zampieri. He has been esteemed by many to surpass in excellence Hannibal Carracci himself, and to be second to Raphael only. This was the opinion of Poussin, who was the first to establish the superior merit of this painter, in prerer ring his celebrated picture in the church of St. GI egorio
at Rome, where it is brought into direct competition with Guido's Martyrdom of St. Andrew, to the performance of that master. Dominechino has a hold and masterly pencil, and was in the habit of working his mind up to the feeling of the passion he meant to represent, which made him be taken for a madman, when occasionally dis covered under the influence of these artificial paroxysms. The expression of violent passions was indeed his favour ite study. He was engaged in painting his martyrdom of St. Andrew, and about to represent the rage of a soldier, when Hannibal Carracci came to see him, and declared, that he had received more instruction from the sight of the painter himself than he had ever done from any pic ture. He painted generally in fresco, and somewhat in a theatrical style, from the architecture with which he was in use to accompany his subjects, and in which he ex celled particularly. There is no obscurity in his subjects; the figures speak their purpose with expression, force, and dignity; in fact, were they gifted with speech, they would tell their story perhaps less impressively than they do in the skilful language of Dominechino's pencil.
Albani, the great painter of nymphs and cupids, was the intimate friend and fellow labourer of Dominechino. The one engrossed the fierce and stormy passions, and the trials of fortitude which rouse the strongest energies of man; while the other delighted in the scenes of infant sport, of gaiety, and voluptuousness. He painted the in nocent and pathetic with a gay rosy tone of colour, and threw a feminine grace into his figures of Venus and the nymphs, in which he is unequalled. He was the Anacreon of painting, and seldom quitted his favourite theme, to which he had been led, not only by taste and study, but by the accident of possessing a handsome wife and twelve beautiful children, who were always at hand to sit for the subjects he delighted to paint, and to feed his appetite for the beauty of the infantine and female form. He selected the most luxuriant and beautiful scenery in nature for the subject of his pictures, which he united in the sweetest harmony with his figures. The serene repose of scenery which surrounds his sleeping Venuscs, the fresh morning tints, and opening flowers, that appear around Diana and her attendants, and Galatea sporting on the placid waves, are quite charming. There is a playfulness and elegance of fancy in the employments of the little roguish cupids that people his pictures, which is exceedingly captivating.