By James Brewer
Gods and goddesses caught in amorous pursuit; mythical sea creatures frolicking around such quests; sea nymphs and putti (cherubs) in curious attendance. These, amid crashing waves, are the bold content of two extraordinary Renaissance works that have just gone on display at the National Gallery, London.
The compelling imagery fills what are known as the Carracci Cartoons (cartoon as derived from the Italian word cartone for a large sheet of paper for preliminary drawings, as opposed to the modern use of the word for a comic drawing or animation).
The artist brothers Annibale and Agostino Carracci were spurred to create the salty scenes by seeing Rome’s heroic antique sculptures, and by the works of their predecessors, Michelangelo and Raphael. The new generation of painters was reimagining the chronicles of human and divine passion, infatuation and rejection.
The Carracci cartoons of 1599 illustrate the amours and abductions among the gods, with a vigour as though picturing rich and real life. Two surviving examples are being fêted by the National Gallery under the title The Carracci Cartoons: Myths in the Making.
At nearly four metres wide and two metres tall, the drawings in charcoal and white chalk are direct, true-to-life-size representations of the paintings that were to be frescoed onto the barrel vault of the ceiling of the residence of the prominent Farnese family.
They show two scenes owing much to the Metamorphoses, Ovid’s epic compilation written around 8 CE of mythological narratives of ancient Greece and Rome. Linked by the theme of transformation through love and desire, Ovid’s histories begin with the initial disorder of the world being resolved by divine intervention separating the earth from the sky, and the sea from the land.
In the drawing now captioned A Woman borne off by a Sea God(?), the central female – an unidentified goddess – glides through the waves, her cloak in free flow, on the back of a winged sea god. Cupid prepares his arrow to target her to make her fall in love. Hymenaeus, the god of marriage, leads a sensuous entourage, with nereids (sea nymphs) riding dolphins. Such processions were the incarnation of the triumphant arrival of Venus, goddess of love, who was born from sea spray. With its embellishment of sea animals, the entire tableau is reminding us that Earth started as a water planet.
Cephalus carried off by Aurora in her Chariot is even more dramatic. Aurora (Eos in Greek), goddess of the dawn, has fallen in love with the mortal hunter Cephalus. He resists her advances, for he is already smitten with Procris, daughter of the king of Athens. Undeterred, Aurora embraces the naked man and abducts him on her horse-drawn chariot. Tithonus, a Trojan prince who was enamoured of Aurora, had been granted immortality by Zeus, but foolishly neglected to request eternal youth, and is seen to the side, aged and asleep.
The Carracci brothers came from the northern Italian city of Bologna where with their older cousin Lodovico, they founded an academy in the early 1580s that trained a generation of Baroque painters including Guido Reni, Domenichino, Francesco Albani and Guercino.
The brothers made their way to Rome in 1594 for the prestigious commission to decorate rooms of the imposing Farnese Palace, owned by the wealthy Odoardo Farnese, who had been elected cardinal at the age of just 18. Odoardo (1573‒1626), the younger son of the Duke of Parma, wanted to adorn a building that had been under construction for several decades.
Having decorated the cardinal’s study with scenes of the deeds of Hercules, the brothers started work on the palace’s vast gallery, which had niches high enough to accommodate large sculptures, and scaffolding was put up to reach the ceiling.
The cartoons were used to transfer the complex compositions onto two layers of fresh plaster on the ceiling.
The outlines of the cartoons were copied to make an imprint on the plaster as a guide for an artist who would use water-based paint. Cephalus carried off by Aurora in her Chariot was cut with a knife into manageable squares to be carried up the scaffolding and later reassembled. It seems that the design of The Woman borne off by a Sea God (?) was kept intact by a separate sheet of paper placed behind the cartoon, with both sheets perforated to leave traceable pinpricks for the contours to be copied.
As well as being a vital part of the creative process, the cartoons are works of art. They are mainly the work of Agostino, the older of the brothers, but Annibale may have played a part. The mythological scenes are set against a backdrop of painted architecture and of sculpture and complete an illusion of framed pictures suspended from the ceiling.
The main part of the Farnese ceiling having been finished, the marriage of the cardinal’s brother, the Duke of Parma, Ranuccio Farnese, to Margherita Aldobrandini, went ahead in 1600. The Galleria Farnese as it came to be called influenced future generations of artists who marvelled at both its artistic treasures and the achievements of the Carracci.
The official website of the palace says: “The frescoes, amidst optical and perspective games, superimpose sculpture, painting and architecture in a triumph of light, shapes and colours that have amazed and fascinated observers for more than four hundred years. The gallery in Palazzo Farnese, decorated mainly by Annibale, is still considered his masterpiece and is the most perfect conclusion to a century and a half of pictorial innovation in Europe, before the birth of the great artistic currents of the seventeenth century.”
Remarkable survivors of art in the making, the cartoons foregrounded by the National Gallery’s expertise are a window into the designs of the brothers, their creative process and technique. The artists brought a new visual aesthetic to Rome. Rather than solemn religious representations, their drawings are lively and mischievous immersions into the polytheistic worlds of ancient Greece and Rome. No wonder that thanks to their studio oeuvre Annibale and Agostino have been credited as being the inventors of caricature.
Dr Christine Seidel, National Gallery associate curator of Renaissance painting, said: “The Carracci cartoons are thrilling displays of creativity and imagination. We are delighted to present a fascinating glimpse into the creation of one of the most ambitious fresco decorations produced in Rome at the dawn of the Baroque.”
The exhibits came into the National Gallery collection in 1837 as part of a gift by Lord Francis Egerton. Before that they had been owned by the artist Sir Thomas Lawrence (1769-1830), a testament to their continued importance as sources of artistic inspiration and training.
The two huge sketches are displayed in all their majesty in, one might say appropriately, Room No 1 in the National Gallery – and entrance is free of charge to members of the public, who are encouraged to see the works which are rarely displayed, having mainly been kept in storage over the years by the National Gallery.
The Farnese Palace has since 1874 been home to the French embassy in Rome, and visits there are for pre-arranged guided tours only.
The Carracci Cartoons: Myths in the Making is at the National Gallery, London, until July 6, 2025. Entry is free.
