Reviews #20
Thursday, 1 May 2025. Newsletter 20.
The Carracci Cartoons: Myths in the Making (10 April 2025 - 6 July 2025)
The National Gallery, London
Reviewed by Laura Staccoli, Ph.D. Candidate, History of Art, Senior Graduate Teaching Assistant, University of Warwick
Agostino Carracci, Cephalus carried off by Aurora in her Chariot. Image credit: The National Gallery, London
The National Gallery’s latest free exhibition, The Carracci Cartoons: Myths in the Making (Room 1) presents a rare opportunity to engage closely with two monumental full-scale drawings by Agostino Carracci (1557-1602), created in preparation for the ceiling fresco of the Farnese Gallery in Rome. While the younger brother, Annibale (1560-1609), is often credited with the overall execution of the gallery, the present display offers an exceptional opportunity to reassess Agostino’s role in the design of one of the most ambitious artistic endeavours of the early seventeenth century.
The unveiling of the Farnese Gallery ceiling in 1601 marked a turning point in Italian art. Commissioned by Cardinal Odoardo Farnese, the great-grandson of Pope Paul III, the mythological scenes, largely derived from Ovid’s Metamorphoses, celebrate the loves of the gods in a sophisticated decorative scheme, combining quadri riportati or feigned paintings, illusionistic architecture, simulated sculpture and fictive antique bronze medallions, integrated into one elaborate architectural framework. The National Gallery’s cartoons were executed around 1599 in preparation for two compartments on the long sides of the gallery ceiling, depicting the stories of Cephalus and Aurora and A Woman borne off by a Sea God(?). The cartoons, measuring nearly four metres wide and two meters tall, in black charcoal and white chalk on multiple sheets of blue-grey paper, are the only surviving large-scale cartoni for the project apart from a substantial fragment of the cartoon by Annibale for the Triumph of Bacchus and Adriane, now in Urbino. Acquired by the National Gallery collection in 1837 as a gift from Lord Francis Egerton (later Earl of Ellesmere), the cartoons had previously belonged to Sir Thomas Lawrence, a well-known admirer and collector of Carracci drawings. As part of a remarkable four-year-long conservation project (1990-94), the cartoons were restored and cleaned, significantly improving the legibility of the blue paper, which had discoloured and become brown in appearance, thus bringing the drawings close to their original splendour.
The exhibition’s accompanying text illustrates the different methods employed by the artists to transfer the design onto the ceiling, offering visitors a rare opportunity to uncover fascinating details behind the making of large-scale cartoons. As was conventional in Renaissance practice, the Carracci brothers created numerous preparatory drawings for the frescoes, including individual figure studies, compositional and decorative studies, before scaling up the final compositions into full-size drawings. The Cephalus was cut into sections, and the design transferred directly on the plaster, likely using a stylus. The sheets of paper were then reassembled and mounted on a canvas support. In contrast, the Woman cartoon was pricked for spolvero, suggesting the creation of an auxiliary cartoon to be cut into sections and used for transfer, thereby preserving the original drawing. Technical examination indicates that the cartoons were always intended for display and were likely reused in academies for teaching, as evidenced by numerous copies made after them.
Agostino Carracci, A Woman borne off by a Sea God (?). Image credit: The National Gallery, London
While the cartoons usually represent the latest stage in the process from invention to wall, the high level of elaboration and continuous reworking in the Gallery’s cartoons demonstrates the experimental nature of Agostino’s draughtsmanship. In one section of the Woman cartoon, a visibly pasted piece of paper reveals that a segment of the cartoon with a winged putto was replaced and covered with a drawing of a drapery. Numerous pentimenti are visible throughout the composition. In the Cephalus, Agostino explored different solutions for the putto’s head, first directed towards Aurora’s chariot, then away from it, contributing to a heightened sense of movement. In the companion cartoon, Agostino altered significantly the position of the hand of the goddess, initially resting on the seagod’s shoulder.
As when they were created, today viewers are invited to make connections between the cartoons and the masters of the High Renaissance, particularly Michelangelo and Raphael, as well as Roman antiquity, which served as a profound source of inspiration for the Carracci. The twisting pose of the youthful Cephalus evokes Michelangelo’s monumental reclining nudes, such as the figure of Adam in the Sistine Chapel. Yet here, the anatomical precision of the male body underscores Agostino’s mastery of chiaroscuro and his training in life drawing, lending the scene a fresh dynamism. The elegant pose of the goddess, with her mantle waving freely in the air echoing her arm’s gesture, demonstrates Agostino’s familiarity with Raphael’s Triumph of Galatea in the Villa Farnesina, just across the Tiber; meanwhile, the woman looking towards the viewer has been interpreted as an allusion to the Crouching Venus, part of the Farnese family’s exceptional collection of antique sculptures. Although the exhibition does not feature additional works, the witty interplay of figures in ‘cinematic’ motion within the large cartoons stimulates endless visual connections, leaving one eager to see more.
The exhibition’s interpretation also highlights Annibale’s intervention and ‘correction’ of Agostino’s designs, most notably in Cephalus’ loyal companion, who is rendered with bolder, more forceful contours. Annibale also reworked the figure of the triton blowing a conch shell, which takes inspiration from the Torso Belvedere, and adjusted the composition directly on the fresco, probably shortly after Agostino’s premature departure from Rome. The dolphin’s tail, which covers the buttocks of a putto in the foreground, has been interpreted as Annibale’s playful parody of the seagod’s sensual gesture.
While Annibale’s undisputed talent and primary responsibility in the execution of the Gallery are not in question, Agostino’s contribution should not be underestimated. Recent scholarship has revealed that the collaboration between the two brothers may have been more significant than previously assumed, prompting new questions about Agostino’s role in the development of the project. The vitality of his drawings for the Farnese frescoes attests to a spontaneous creativity and an experimental approach that persists even in the final stages of the design. While research into the Farnese Gallery drawings is still ongoing and Agostino’s catalogue raisonné is forthcoming, this timely exhibition invites us to reconsider the centrality of drawing within the creative process of one of the greatest masterpieces produced in Rome at the dawn of the Baroque.
Image credit: Palazzo Farnese, Roma, public domain (source: Wikimedia Commons)
