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| Agostino Carracci Putto leaning on Plinth before 1602 drawing Graphische Sammlung Albertina, Vienna |
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| Agostino Carracci Putto pulling Rope before 1602 drawing Graphische Sammlung Albertina, Vienna |
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| Agostino Carracci Studies for Mascaron Ornaments ca. 1600 drawing Graphische Sammlung Albertina, Vienna |
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| Agostino Carracci Drapery Studies before 1602 drawing Graphische Sammlung Albertina, Vienna |
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| Agostino Carracci St Lucy ca. 1581 engraving Graphische Sammlung, ETH Zürich |
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| Agostino Carracci The Virgin with the Holy Spirit ca. 1581 engraving Graphische Sammlung, ETH Zürich |
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| Agostino Carracci St Jerome ca. 1595-1602 drawing Graphische Sammlung Albertina, Vienna |
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| Agostino Carracci after Francesco Vanni St Jerome ca. 1595 engraving Graphische Sammlung, ETH Zürich |
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| Agostino Carracci after Francesco Vanni St Francis with Musical Angel 1595 engraving Graphische Sammlung, ETH Zürich |
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| Agostino Carracci Cain slaying Abel before 1602 drawing Graphische Sammlung Albertina, Vienna |
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| Agostino Carracci Study of Kneeling Men in Cloaks before 1602 drawing Graphische Sammlung Albertina, Vienna |
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| Agostino Carracci Baptism of Christ ca. 1581 etching and engraving Graphische Sammlung, ETH Zürich |
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| Agostino Carracci after Paolo Veronese Virgin and Child enthroned with St Joseph, St John the Baptist, St Anthony Abbot, and St Catherine 1582 engraving Graphische Sammlung, ETH Zürich |
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| attributed to Agostino Carracci Half-Length Figure Study for Ignudo ca. 1595 drawing (study for fresco) National Gallery of Victoria, Melbourne |
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| Agostino Carracci Half-Length Study of Pointing Figure before 1602 drawing Graphische Sammlung Albertina, Vienna |
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| Agostino Carracci Omnia Vincit Amor (Cupid overcoming Pan with Nymphs watching) ca. 1599 drawing (print study) Städel Museum, Frankfurt |
. . . the German critic Konrad Lange wrote a long book on the aesthetics of illusion. He saw, correctly I believe, that all reading of images demands what Coleridge calls a "willing suspension of disbelief." To him all aesthetic pleasure in art was rooted in our oscillation between two series of associations, those of reality and those of art. The terminology and the examples of the book sound curiously old-fashioned, and its aesthetic bias is no longer ours. But his psychological insights enabled Lange to diagnose the tendencies of his time pretty shrewdly:
"Following the overemphasis of the idea of nature for a time, we now [in 1907] have the stressing of the idea of art. Elements which impede illusion gain in interest. A painting must not be natural but must aim at "decorative" effects. If previously painting strove passionately after the illusion of depth, artists now strive with equal passion to emphasize the plane. If previously geometric schematization was rejected as inartistic, artists now wallow in canonic proportions, the gold section, the equilateral triangle. If previously glazes were used to give luminosity to colors and to increase the sense of distance, colors are now spread in a dull mat medium that is seen mainly as pigment. If previously technical skill was overrated, it is now held in contempt."
All this was written before the last desperate revolt against illusionism and the peep-show picture, the rise of cubism. Cubism, I believe, is the most radical attempt to stamp out ambiguity and to enforce one reading of the picture – that of a man-made construction, a colored canvas. If illusion is due to the interaction of clues and the absence of contradictory evidence, the only way to fight its transforming influence is to make the clues contradict each other and to prevent a coherent image of reality from destroying the pattern in the plane.
– E.H. Gombrich, Art and Illusion: a Study in the Psychology of Pictorial Representation (Princeton University Press, 1960)