River landscape with three boats,

ca. 1600

Annibale Carracci’s idealizing and atmospheric vision of nature is exemplified in this rigorously composed drawing, one of many he made throughout his career in Bologna and Rome. With a few strokes of the pen, he conjures up a bucolic riverside setting with a series of lucidly receding planes, which lead from tall trees in the foreground, past swiftly skimming boats and picturesque hilltop buildings in the middle ground, toward a distant horizon. Probably composed in the studio, this drawing was based on sketches made out of doors—one of the innovative teaching principles of the Carracci Academy in Bologna. Although Annibale created few pure landscape paintings, such poetic settings appear as panoramic backdrops in many of his Roman religious paintings, which in turn served as sources of inspiration to his followers, most notably Domenichino and Francesco Albani.