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| Guercino St Sebastian succoured by Angels 1617 oil on copper Fitzwilliam Museum, Cambridge |
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| Guercino Susanna and the Elders 1617 oil on canvas Museo del Prado, Madrid |
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| Guercino Dead Christ Mourned by Angels ca. 1617-18 oil on copper National Gallery, London |
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| Guercino Apollo and Marsyas ca. 1618 oil on canvas Palazzo Pitti, Florence |
"Guercino was born in the small town of Cento near the artistic centers of Ferrara and Bologna. Although he studied with local artists, including the Centese quadratura painter Paolo Zagnani and the Bolognese Benedetto Gennari, he was, as he himself admitted, largely self taught. Guercino looked toward Venetianizing Ferrarese artists such as Scarsellino, whose rich painterly style and deep colors affected his early landscapes. More important, however, were the paintings of the Carracci, and especially those of Ludovico, whose naturalistic figures moved excitedly in a dramatic chiaroscuro light. . . . When Cardinal Alessandro Ludovisi became Pope Gregory XV in 1621 Guercino was called to Rome. . . . For the Vatican, Guercino created the immense Saint Petronilla altarpiece, in which a moody atmosphere and dark colors are offset by an awakening interest in the balance of Renaissance compositions, as epitomized by Raphael."
– from the artist's biography as published in the Systematic Catalogue of the National Gallery of Art, Washington DC
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| Guercino Burial of Saint Petronilla 1623 oil on canvas Pinacoteca Capitolina, Rome |
"Guercino is the youngest and last of the masters of that titanic generation of painters who transmitted to the heritage of all Europe the lessons learned from the teaching and practice of the Carracci Academy. . . . His career is conventionally divided into three phases: the pre-Roman period, characterized by powerful and flickering chiaroscuro, passionate and dramatic in the extreme; the Roman period and its aftermath, when he sought, while retaining the dramatic force of strong chiaroscuro, to adapt this manner to visions of monumental clarity and dignity; and his late style, in which he seems to move away from the "Baroque" energies and clamor of his earlier work toward a more restrained classicism. Malvasia most acutely saw in Guercino's chiaroscuro technique – especially in his two earlier phases – a distinction that sets it apart from Lanfranco's. In addition to its naturalistic effects, the dramatic quality and expressive energy of Guercino's art approximates rather more the effects of theatrical spotlighting than it does plein air painting."
– from Charles Dempsey's essay, Painting in Bologna from the Carracci to Crespi, published in the exhibition catalogue, Captured Emotions: Baroque Painting in Bologna, 1575-1725 (Getty Museum, 2008)
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| Guercino Raising of Lazarus ca. 1619 oil on canvas Musée du Louvre |
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| Guercino Return of the Prodigal Son 1619 oil on canvas Kunsthistorisches Museum, Vienna |
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| Guercino Samson captured by Philistines 1619 oil on canvas Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York |
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| Guercino Erminia and the Shepherd 1619-20 oil on canvas Birmingham Museum and Art Gallery (Great Britain) |
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| Guercino Erminia finding the wounded Tancred 1619 oil on canvas Galleria Doria Pamphilij, Rome |
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| Guercino Vision of St Jerome 1619-20 oil on copper Musée du Louvre |
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| Guercino Christ and the Samaritan Woman 1619-20 oil on canvas Kimbell Art Museum, Fort Worth, Texas |
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| Guercino Betrayal of Christ before 1621 oil on canvas Fitzwilliam Museum, Cambridge |
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| Guercino Christ with the Woman taken in Adultery ca. 1621 oil on canvas Dulwich Picture Gallery, London |
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| Guercino St Matthew writing his Gospel with the assistance of an Angel 1622 oil on canvas Pinacoteca Capitolina, Rome |
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| Guercino St Peter freed from Prison by an Angel ca. 1622 oil on canvas Museo del Prado, Madrid |