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| Guido Reni David with the Head of Goliath 1606 oil on canvas Musée du Louvre |
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| Guido Reni Christ appearing to the Virgin ca. 1608 oil on canvas Fitzwilliam Museum, Cambridge |
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| Guido Reni Paul rebukes the repentant Peter 1609 oil on canvas Pinacoteca di Brera, Milan |
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| Guido Reni Triumph of Samson ca. 1611-12 oil on canvas Pinacoteca Nazionale, Bologna |
"One of the great lyrical Old Masters of the 17th century, Guido Reni was among the best-known members of the Bolognese school of painting, which – led by Annibale Carracci and his brother Agostino – did so much to define Baroque art in Rome, Venice and Naples during the period 1590-1630. . . . Like all members of the Carracci academy, Reni absorbed the classical tradition of meticulous, firm drawing. Though he experimented with the new naturalism of Caravaggio, the main influences on his graceful style were classical sculpture and the works of Raphael. . . . Immaculately dressed, often accompanied by servants, Reni earned huge sums for his paintings in Bologna, where he became the city's leading artist after the death of Ludovico Carracci in 1619. Reni's reputation as an important exponent of classical Baroque painting endured for more than two centuries, until the art critic John Ruskin (1819-1900) dismissed him as insincere and sentimental."
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| Guido Reni Torso of Apollo (study for Aurora fresco, Palazzo Rospigliosi, Rome) ca. 1614 drawing Royal Collection, Great Britain |
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| Guido Reni Hercules on the Pyre 1617-19 oil on canvas Musée du Louvre |
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| Guido Reni Bacchus and Ariadne 1619-20 oil on canvas Los Angeles County Museum of Art |
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| Guido Reni Study for the Head of Christ ca. 1620 drawing Royal Collection, Great Britain |
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| Guido Reni Torso ca. 1620 drawing National Galleries of Scotland |
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| Guido Reni Baptism of Christ ca. 1623 oil on canvas Kunsthistorisches Museum, Vienna |
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| Guido Reni Joseph and Potiphar's Wife 1625-26 oil on canvas Fitzwilliam Museum, Cambridge |
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| Guido Reni St John the Baptist in the Wilderness 1636-37 oil on canvas Dulwich Picture Gallery, London |
"Commissions came to Guido in droves; and there was no lord or man of high rank who did not wish to distinguish himself by having some stroke of his brush in his house or to preserve in some sacred place. Many works were also sought after for gain, due to the example of those that have doubled the profit on them many times over; therefore, as it is virtually impossible for us to continue with such a large number of works produced by this master, we will put a note about everything at the end, leaving it to those who happen to admire them to praise them. Now let us truly consider the fact that with his brushstrokes he successfully executed so many pictures and copious altarpieces that he made more wealth for himself alone than did all the other painters of his native city combined, even though they possessed outstanding merit. Hence at this point we are forced to bemoan human folly that a man endowed with the rarest virtues of heart and of genius, as Guido was, should then put himself unluckily at the mercy of one point of cards or dice, losing all his earnings, and what is graver still, that he should trust his very reputation to chance, as well as that noble, lofty genius of his, because, being unable to withstand the continual losses and runs of hard luck that were sometimes beyond his capabilities, he would attempt to make up for it by painting, anticipating advance payments and projects which he would then be unable to conclude except with hardship and travail."
– Giovan Pietro Bellori, from The Lives of the Modern Painters, Sculptors and Architects (1672), translated by Alice Sedgwick Wohl (Cambridge University Press, 2005)
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| Guido Reni Ecce Homo ca. 1639 oil on canvas Fitzwilliam Museum, Cambridge |
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| Guido Reni Polyphemus 1639-40 oil on canvas Pinacoteca Capitolina, Rome |
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| Guido Reni Blessed Soul ca. 1640-42 oil on canvas Pinacoteca Capitolina, Rome |