GUIDO RENI (whom we place here as being, like Raffaelle more generally known by his Christian name) was born at Bologna in 1574, where he studied painting, first under Denis Calvart, a Flemish artist of high reputation, and afterwards visited the school of the Caracci, who are reputed to have been jealous of him. He appears to have been some time undecided with respect to the style he should adopt. At first, as might be expected, he followed the Caracci, preferring how ever the manner of Ludovico. On visiting Rome he carefully ex amined every thing worthy the attention of an artist, and was en raptured with the works of Raffaelle. He was also much struck with the great effect of the style of Caravaggio, which he attempted for a time, but happily laid it aside for the style peculiarly his own, in which the felicitous combination of grace, ease, grandeur, and elegance, with the highest perfection in the mechanical parts, lightness of pencil, freedom of touch, and exquisite delicacy, obtained him the universal applause of his contemporaries, and have secured him the lasting admiration of posterity. His genius was not indeed equally adapted to all subjects. He preferred and excelled in those in which tender ness, pathos, or devotion predominate ; and in these he is diatinguished from all other painters. He had a peculiar manner of painting the eyes large, the mouth small, the nostrils compressed, and the toes rather too closely joined. His heads are considered by many as equal to those of Raffaelle in correctness of design and propriety of expres sion, an opinion In which we do not coincide : as regarda intellectual character, sentiment, and purity, there can be no comparison made between them. His standard of female beauty was founded on the
antique, the ' Venus de' Medici' and the 'Daughters of Niobe,' and hence perhaps has arisen a certain monotony. He finished his pictures with great care ; his colouring is extremely clear and pure, but some times, especially in hia later pictures, there is a greyish cast which changed into a lurid colour. It is to be lamented that an Incurable propensity to gambling reduced him to distressed circumstances, so that his necessities compelling him to work for immediate subsistence without due regard to his honour and his fame, many of his later performances are much inferior to those which he painted in his happier days. He died August 18, 1642, aged sixty-eight. His works have always and justly been admired all over Europe, continually rising in estimation and value. Among Ilia moat celebrated works were—an altarpiece in the church of St. Philip Neri at Farm, repre senting Christ delivering the Keys to St. Peter; a 'St. John; in the Archiepiscopal Gallery at Milan; the 'Virgin and Child and St. John; in the Tanaro Palace at Bologna; and the 'Penitence of St. Peter after denying Christ,' with one of the apostles comforting him, in the Zam pleri Palace, ono of his most excellent works. There are several of his pictures in the National Gallery, Including some of large sire and considerable celebrity.