Currently not on view
Bespectacled Man Reading a Book,
1630s–40s
This drawing clearly attests to Guercino’s standing as one of the most creative and prolific caricaturists of the seventeenth century. The word caricature comes from the Italian caricatura, indicating something “loaded” or “charged.” Caricature drawings are “loaded” as they exaggerate specific features or make odd juxtapositions that emphasize difference. Guercino’s caricatures are marvelous examples of his fertile imagination, and of his curiosity and gentle humor, yet at the same time they reveal the artist’s keen and compassionate observation of humanity
Guercino’s caricatures grew out of the revolutionary naturalism in painting developed by the Carracci (Annibale, Agostino, and Ludovico) and their followers in Bologna beginning in the early 1580s. The Carracci’s innovative curriculum of drawing instruction emphasized nature’s unidealized beauty as a primary source for artists. Although Leonardo da Vinci had made influential physiognomic studies of old men and women at the beginning of the sixteenth century, these had a scientific focus and a penchant for the grotesque that were quite different from the simple humor produced in the Carracci’s sketches.
Information
1630s–40s
- Diane De Grazia, Guercino drawings in the Art Museum, Princeton University, March ll through April 6, 1969, (Princeton, NJ, Princeton University, 1969)., no. 34
- Felton Gibbons, Catalogue of Italian Drawings in The Art Museum, Princeton University, (Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press, 1977)., Vol. 1: p. 198, no. 637 (illustrated in Vol. 2 under the same catalog number)
- Allen Rosenbaum and Francis F. Jones, Selections from The Art Museum, Princeton University, (Princeton, NJ: The Art Museum, Princeton University, 1986), p. 29 (illus.)
- David Stone, Guercino, master draftsman: works from North American collections, (Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Art Museum; Bologna, Italy: Nuova Alfa Editoriale, 1991)., cat. nos. 87-91 (illus.); p. 198-207;
- Laura Giles, Lia Markey, Claire Van Cleave, et. al., Italian Master Drawings from the Princeton University Art Museum, (Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Art Museum, 2014)., p. 44, cat. no. 17; p. 45 (illus.); p. 46 (verso illus.); p. 257-258, app. no. 86; p. 258 (illus.)
