Getty Museum
Head and Figure Studies
Creator
Giulio Cesare ProcacciniItalian Artist · 1574–1625
All works by this person →Giulio Cesare Procaccini's father, Ercole the Elder, a former student of Annibale Carracci, moved the family from Bologna to Milan in about 1590. There he founded a school of painting called the Academy of the Procaccini, which trained many Milanese painters, including Ercole's three sons. Giulio Cesare, however, began his career as a sculptor. His painting style was an amalgam of influences that
More on Getty ULAN- Date
- about 1612
- Medium
- Red chalk
- Culture
- Italian
- Department
- Drawings
- Institution
- Getty Museum
Sculptor and painter Giulio Cesare Procaccini randomly covered a sheet of paper with differently scaled studies unified into a beautiful, integrated composition. This drawing displays his understanding of both the benefits and the limitations of the popular red chalk medium. He used the warmth and vitality of the red color to breathe life into his figures while recognizing that the red could not produce the illusion of depth achieved by shading in black chalk. Procaccini's curling rhythms and billowing forms, particularly in the female figure at the right, derive from Correggio, one of his chief sources of inspiration. Red chalk was one of Correggio's favorite media, and Procaccini emulated his soft textures and richly modeled surfaces here.
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