Pope Paul III  

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Renaissance erotica

The Loves of the Gods is a massive fresco cycle completed by Annibale Carracci and his studio in the Palazzo Farnese (now the French Embassy) in Rome, completed in 1608. The fresco series was greatly admired in its time, and was later felt to reflect a change in aesthetic in Rome from Mannerism to Baroque.

Production

Cardinal Odoardo Farnese, Pope Paul III's nephew, commissioned Annibale and his crew to decorate the barrel-vaulted gallery in the piano nobile of the family palace. Work was started in 1597 and ended in 1608. The studio involved were led by Annibale, and later briefly his brother Agostino, included a number of significant artists, such as Francesco Albani, Guido Reni, Domenichino, and Sisto Badalocchio. The Farnese Gallery consists of profusely decorated quadratura and framed mythologic scenes.

Scheme

Annibale had first decorated a small room (the Camerino) in the Palazzo with scenes from the life of Hercules, likely to enhance the viewing of the famed Roman statue of the Farnese Hercules. In 1597, he began to decorate the gallery with mythological themes set within frames painted on an illusionistic architectural framework (quadratura)[1]. Ignudi, putti, and herms (male caryatid figures) hold up the painted framework. Bellori, a noted art critic of the next generation called it "Human Love Governed by Celestial Love".

In the center panel, the Triumph of Bacchus and Ariadne depicts a both riotous and classically restrained procession which ferries Bacchus and Ariadne to their lovers' bed. Here, the underlying myth is that Bacchus, the god of wine, had gained the love of the abandoned princess, Ariadne. In the Republican and Imperial Roman era, triumphs were parades by victorious leaders, wherein a laureled-crowned imperator was led by a white chariot led by two white horses. The two lovers are led by chariots drawn by tigers [2] and a parade of nymphs, bacchanti, and trumpeting satyrs. At the fore, Bacchus' tutor, the paunchy, ugly, and leering drunk Silenus, rides an ass. The figures carefully cavort in order to hide most naked male genitals. The program may refer to Ovid's Metamorphosis (VIII; lines 160-182) or a trifling carnival song-poem written by Lorenzo de Medici in about 1475, that entreats: [3]

The painter's cousin Ludovico Carracci engraved uncensored versions in prints of the scenes. Also in contrast to the ceiling's intimation rather than outright depiction of mythological lovemaking are erotic engravings by the painter's brother Agostino - the I Modi.

Critical Assessment and Legacy

After completing the Farnese frescoes, Annibale reportedly entered a long depression, and none of his subsequent works were considered as noteworthy. His influence for the future aesthetic of the fresco would be powerful. The density of figures would fuel debates in the next generation of fresco painters, Sacchi and Cortona; clearly, as this fresco indicates, Carracci's effervescent manner influenced Cortona.

Carracci, in his day, was seen as one of the painters that revived the classical style. Rebellious artists such as Caravaggio and his followers would in few years abandon the sunny background, and the representation of mythology in their art. But it would be inappropriate to view Carracci as solely the continuation of an inherited tradition; in his day, his vigorous and dynamic style, and that of his trainees, changed the pre-eminent aesthetic of Rome. His work would have been seen as liberating for artists of his day, touching on pagan themes with an unconstrained joy. It could be said that while Mannerism had mastered the art of formal strained contraposto and contorsion; Carracci had depicted dance and joy.

Neoclassic formalism and severity frowned on the excesses of Carracci; but in his day, he would have been seen as masterful, as the supreme approximation to classic beauty. Carracci painted in the tradition of Raphael and Giulio Romano's secular Galatea frescoes in the Loggia of the Villa Farnesina. Unlike Raphael though, they display a Michelangelo-esque muscularity, and depart from the often emotionless visages of High Renaissance painting. Finally, it has been said that Carracci and his school blended Venetian colorism with the Florentine-Umbrian attention to drawing and design; yet this is best seen in the oil canvases rather than frescoes in the Farnese, which required for Carracci and intensive degree of drawn preplaning and attention, much of which still exists.

Thomas Hoving, later director of the Metropolitan Museum of Art, wrote his PhD on the cycle, pointing out many correspondences between the frescoes and items in the famous Farnese collection of Roman sculpture, much of which was then housed in the gallery (it is now in Naples, mostly in the Museo di Capodimonte). His suggestion that many details of the fresoes were designed to compliment the marbles below has been generally accepted.

Panels of Farnese Ceiling

• Central Ceiling Fresco

  Triumph of Bacchus and Ariadne

• Ceiling Scenes

  Bedding Scenes

  Jove beds Juno

  Venus, Cupid, and Anchise (father of Aeneas) (Genus Latinum)

  Crescent-crowned Diane and Endymion

  Hercules with tambourine and Iole with Club

  Other

  Europa and the Bull (Jupiter)

  Aurora abducts Cephalus in her Chariot

  Peleus abducts the Nereid Tethys

  The Cyclops Polyphemus and the Nereid Galatea

  The Cyclops Polyphemus Throws a Boulder at Fleeing Acis (and Galatea)

  Ganymede and the Eagle (Jupiter)

  Apollo abducts Hyacinth Skyward

  Pan and Diana

  Mercury Brings golden Apple to Paris

• Wall Scenes

  Peseus rescues Andromeda from the Dragon

  Perseus turns Phineas and followers to stone using the head of Medusa

  The Virgin and the Unicorn

  Icarus and Dedalus

  Diane is shown the Jupiter-impregnated Callisto

  Metamorphosis of Callisto into a Bear

  Mercury and Apollo

  Arion the Citharist is rescued by Dolphins

  Minerva and Prometheus

  Hercules slays the Dragon

  Hercules liberates Prometheus