_Guido Reni_ (Eclectic-Bologna: 1575-1642).
Guido was a native of Bologna, the son of a musician, and
first studied under Dionysius Calvaert, a Flemish artist
established in that city. Guido afterwards removed to the
school of the Carracci, and became one of their most celebrated
pupils. For twenty years he worked in Rome, where he obtained
great distinction. He left Rome abruptly, owing to a dispute
with one of the Cardinals, and settled in Bologna, where he
lived in splendour and established a school. "As a child he
was very beautiful, with blonde hair, blue eyes, and a fair
complexion. He was specially characterised by devotion to the
Madonna. On every Christmas-eve, for seven successive years,
ghostly knockings were heard upon his chamber door; and every
night, when he awoke from sleep, the darkness above his bed
was illuminated by a mysterious globe of light. In after life,
besides being piously addicted to Madonna-worship, he had a
great dread of women in general and witches in particular.
He was always careful, it is said, to leave his studio door
open while drawing from a woman" (Symonds's _Renaissance_,
vii. 215). To the temperament thus indicated we may trace the
half-effeminate, half-spiritual character of some of his
works--the "few pale rays of fading sanctity," which Ruskin
sees in him (_Modern Painters_, vol. v. pt. ix. ch. iv. § 4).
In later life his effeminate eccentricity amounted to insanity,
and he gave himself wholly up to the gaming table. To extricate
himself from money troubles he sold his time, says his
biographer, at a stipulated sum per hour, to certain dealers,
one of whom tasked him so rigidly as to stand by him, watch in
hand, while he worked. How different from the honourable terms
on which the earlier masters worked! How easy to understand the
number of bad Guidos in the world! His biographer, Malvasia,
relates that Guido's works were sometimes begun and finished in
three hours. His earlier works were in the robust and forcible
style of Caravaggio (_see_ No. 172). Afterwards he aimed rather
at ideal grace. Both styles are represented in the National
Gallery; the "Magdalen" (177), the "Youthful Christ embracing
St. John" (191), and the "Ecce Homo" (271), have all been much
admired for their sentiment or sentimentality. The head of St.
John is a work of undoubted grace. But Guido's best work is the
Aurora of the Rospigliosi Palace at Rome.
For the story of St. Jerome, _see_ under 227.