Guido Reni, ‘the divine’: a life in search of beauty

To die the ugly! Guido Reni’s painting is a catalog of Christs, Virgins, saints, putti, strong heroes and tragic heroines… all of them are beautiful. It doesn’t matter if they are tortured, sacrificed or about to commit suicide. They don’t lose their appeal. Even the old men in his paintings, with their loose skin, wrinkles, and gray hair, are beautiful. Known as ‘the divine’, a nickname within reach of very few in the History of Art (Apelles, Raphael, Michelangelo…), he was considered a genius capable of touching the supernatural with his art. His career became a colossal effort in search of beauty. His contemporaries had a very high appreciation for his painting, “heavenly, beyond the human”. They believed that he not only approached perfection, but was even capable of transcending it. Installation in the Prado of the monumental painting ‘The Triumph of Job’, exceptional loan from the Notre-Dame Cathedral in Paris Museo del Prado Guido Reni (Bologna, 1575-1642) was one of the most famous and admired artists of his time. , with relevant patrons and commissions from the Courts of Madrid, Paris and London. But in the 19th century, with Romanticism, his painting fell into ostracism. They criticize an ‘effeminacy’ of art. Baroque Bolognese painting was banished from the Louvre. It was not until the mid-20th century that the figure of Guido Reni was restored, with an exhibition in 1954 in his hometown. It was followed in the 1980s by others in the United States and Europe. Specialists such as Roberto Longhi, Denis Mahon and, in Spain, Alfonso E. Pérez Sánchez contributed to its restitution. Today, Guido Reni is highly appreciated by collectors and researchers. Coincidences of life, barely a hundred meters separate the exhibitions of Lucian Freud at the Thyssen and that of Guido Reni at the Prado, two very different artists, almost antagonistic in their biographies and pictorial style, but who made the human body the central axis of his work. The first painted the trembling flesh; the second, idealized meat. Two sides of the same coin, but both equally great. Standard Related News Yes Lucian Freud, in the flesh Natividad Pulido The Thyssen Museum inaugurates a great retrospective of the British painter, which brings together 55 of his moving, beautiful and disturbing paintings El Prado dedicates a great anthology to the Bolognese master, the first in Spain, with almost a hundred works (73 by Reni), ceded by 44 lenders from ten countries. Including monumental works such as ‘The Triumph of Job’, from the Notre-Dame de Paris cathedral, which managed to save itself from the fire and is exhibited for the first time after its restoration. It was commissioned from Reni by the Bologna Setaioli (serters) guild for his chapel in Santa Maria dei Mendicanti. Before the restoration After the restoration ‘San Sebastián’, by Guido Reni. On the left, before restoration. To the right, after. A crude 18th century repainting on the purity cloth has been removed Museo del Prado It has not been easy for the Prado to bring this exhibition to a successful conclusion. For the first time in the history of the museum, the tender for the service of packing and transporting works of a temporary exhibition was void with an estimated value of 865,000 euros. A second tender had to be called urgently, this time raising the offer by 15%, up to 993,950 euros. Finally, the cost amounted to 1,150,000 euros. The exhibition, organized in collaboration with the Städel Museum in Frankfurt and sponsored by the BBVA Foundation, occupies rooms A and B of the Jerónimos building. It can be visited until July 9. The curator of the exhibition, David García Cueto, head of the Department of Italian and French Painting until 1800 of the Prado, has distributed it in eleven areas. He starts with a self-portrait by Guido Reni, in his early 20s (private collection, London), in which he is already proud. Next to him, a beautiful tondo, ‘The union of drawing and color’, from the Louvre, allegory of the essential elements of painting, an inalienable principle of his art. Desire and sensuality Above, the two versions of ‘Hippomenes and Atalanta’ are exhibited together for the first time: the one at the Prado and the one at the Museo di Capodimonte in Naples. On these lines, on the left, ‘The union of drawing and colour’, from the Louvre Museum (detail). On the right, ‘Bacchus and Ariadne’, from a private collection in Switzerland Museo del Prado Recent historiographical contributions shed light on the artist . Today his biography is better known. From a musician father, he began as a disciple in Denys Calvaert’s workshop. Later he continued his studies with the Carracci, being the most outstanding student of the Accademia degli Incamminati. His trip to Rome in 1601 marked a before and after in his career. He went in search of his admired Raphael, another ‘divine’, but very soon the most radical and modern artist of all, Caravaggio, crossed his path. He wanted to measure himself with him and surpass his creations. He came to be considered the anti-Caravaggio. But Reni soon got away from his style. They say that they had their ups and downs and that they ended up falling out. Both versions of David’s victory over Goliath hang together in the Prado. Reni portrays a mannered David, dressed in furs and a feathered headdress; Caravaggio’s is much cruder. In the same room, the most beautiful in the show, hang two San Sebastián. The one from Reni, from the Prado, next to one from Ribera, from the old Collegiate Church of Osuna. The first has been restored: the coarse repainting added to the purity cloth in the 18th century has been removed. Another monumental painting presides over the room: ‘The massacre of the innocents’, from the National Pinacoteca of Bologna, an icon of the Italian city. Also in Rome, Reni was able to admire monumental, otherworldly versions of human anatomy. This is the case of the ‘Torso Belvedere’ and Michelangelo’s frescoes in the Sistine Chapel. The Bolognese master addressed this issue in a gallery of mythological paintings, such as ‘Hercules and the Hydra’, from the Uffizi in Florence; ‘The fall of Phaethon’ or ‘Jupiter and the giants’. Religious painting occupies a very prominent place in Reni’s pictorial iconography: a group of saints, the Calvary of Christ (his ‘Ecce Homo’ is measured with that of Titian), or the ‘Immaculate Conception’, from the Metropolitan Museum of New York. This belonged to María de Austria, sister of Felipe IV, and was donated to the Cathedral of Seville, where she was until the Napoleonic invasion, when she left Spain. Exceptional loan, it hangs next to the ‘Inmaculada de El Escorial’, by Murillo. The Sevillian artist was one of his main followers. Also, Velázquez and Zurbarán. Religious painting Above, three versions by Guido Reni of the same subject: Saint John the Baptist. Above these lines, on the left, detail of the ‘Immaculate Conception’, on loan from the Metropolitan Museum of New York. On the right, detail of ‘The Massacre of the Innocents’, in the National Art Gallery of Bologna Prado Museum Desire and sensuality are the ‘leitmotiv’ of another of the most outstanding rooms. For the first time, the two versions of ‘Hipómenes and Atalanta’ are exhibited together: the recently restored Prado version (today one of his most famous works, it was deposited in Granada until 1964), and the Capodimonte Museum in Naples. Which is better? Which one did you paint first? In the commissioner’s opinion, details in the feet and faces make the Prado “have a slightly superior identity.” It can be discussed at an international congress in June. On a nearby wall, ‘Bacchus and Ariadne’, located in a private Swiss collection, after losing track of it for two centuries. It is now displayed for the first time. In another, ‘Apollo and Marsyas’, a work of great violence with two opposing male anatomies. And in an adjoining space, examples of his representation of the child’s body, with an army of putti and cherubs, and a metaphor of love embodied in ‘Muchacha con una rosa’, a work that hung in Felipe IV’s summer office in the Alcázar from Madrid. Bologna in the 17th century was a great center of silk production. Hence, Guido Reni’s interest in demonstrating his virtuosity by painting rich and exquisite fabrics, which contrast with the skin of women, is not surprising. This is how it can be seen in a splendid gallery of goddesses, saints and tragic heroines of Antiquity: Cleopatra, Lucrecia, Maria Magdalena, Salome… Ludópata and misogynist Reni came to treasure a large workshop, with many disciples and apprentices, a production machine artistic in which copies of his most famous creations were made, some autographs, others not, but authorized by him. Versions of Saint John the Baptist, Cleopatra or Saint Catherine of Alexandria hang in the Prado. Also included is one of the few surviving cartoons of him, ‘Erigone’, which the artist used to prepare the figure of Grace in ‘Aseo de Venus’, from the National Gallery in London. The exhibition closes with a final stage in Reni’s work known as ‘non finito’. Haunted by gambling debts due to his gambling (cards and dice), Guido Reni’s latest works undergo a radical change: the shapes dissolve, the drawing almost disappears, his palette shrinks and fades (they resemble grisaille). . The reason? Lack of time or energy. He needed to earn money and for this reason works were produced in his workshop in a frenzy. There are those who appreciate the beauty of the unfinished at this stage. The last work, ‘Blessed Soul’, from the Capitoline Museums, is a metaphor for an artist who sought the beauty of the human and the supernatural and touched paradise. Alongside Reni’s paintings and drawings, works by artists who influenced the master or on whom he left his mark are exhibited. Many of his pictorial compositions were taken to sculpture by Alessandro Algardi, known as ‘Guido in marble’. MORE INFORMATION news Si Kokoschka, ‘the great savage’ who stood up to Nazism news Si La Roldana, the first sculptor of the Spanish Court and woman who broke the mold in the 17th century news Yes ‘Hipómenes y Atalanta’, a hymn to beauty in all its splendor In Guido Reni’s biography there are as many lights as shadows, just like in Caravaggio’s paintings. The black legend of him attributes great misogyny to him. Narcissistic and superstitious to the extreme, they say that he feared being poisoned by some woman (a matter of witchcraft), which caused him to fire all the female servants from his house. He didn’t let women touch anything in his study, just his mother. There are also theories about his (non)sexuality: today his supposed virginity could be attributed to a repressed homosexuality, but then he considered himself to be of an angelic nature. The curator considers it “an error to apply today’s moral and ethical categories to previous times” and explains that he had “an idealized vision of women, like Petrarch.”