Bologna National Art Gallery
Former Jesuit novitiate holding a room devoted to the workshop that pioneered life-drawing over imitation.
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About this audio guide
This guide to the Bologna National Art Gallery follows three cousins, Ludovico, Agostino, and Annibale Carracci, who opened a workshop in the 1580s built on watching real bodies rather than copying old paintings, and the students they called the incamminati, those setting out on the road, including a young Guido Reni. It also traces the building itself, raised in the 1720s as a Jesuit novitiate for young men training in an entirely different discipline, before Napoleon's armies emptied Bologna's churches and convents and their altarpieces ended up hung on these walls. Stand in the room devoted to the Carracci and study how their canvases handle a bending joint or a strained hand.
This audio guide was created using AI.