_Lodovico Carracci_ (Eclectic-Bologna: 1555-1619).
Lodovico is famous in art history as the founder of the
Eclectic school of Bologna. Disgusted with the weakness of the
Mannerists (of whom Baroccio was the best; _see_ next picture),
he determined to start a rival school, and enlisted the
services of his two cousins, Agostino and Annibale, for that
purpose. Their object, as expressed in a sonnet by Agostino,
was to be to "acquire the design of Rome, Venetian action, and
Venetian management of shade, the dignified colour of Lombardy
(Leonardo), the terrible manner of Michael Angelo, Titian's
truth and nature, the sovereign purity of Correggio's style,
and the just symmetry of Raphael." Lodovico, who was the son
of a Bolognese butcher,[62] was a man of very wide culture and
of great industry. In natural talent he was deficient. When
first sent to an art school at Bologna, he was called by his
companions "the ox," and when he visited Venice the veteran
Tintoretto warned him that he had no vocation. But resolving
to win by industry what nature seemed to have denied him, he
studied diligently at Florence, Parma, Mantua, and Venice. He
superintended the school, at first conjointly with his cousins,
afterwards alone, from 1589 to his death.
A less objectionable rendering than most, of the story of Susannah in
the Apocrypha--a story for all time, setting forth as it does the way
in which minions of the law too often prey upon the innocent, and the
righteous condemnation that the people, when there are just judges in
the land, mete out to the offenders. Two judges, "ancients of the
people," approached Susannah and threatened to report her as guilty
unless she consented to do their bidding. She refused, and was reported
accordingly. Judgment had well-nigh gone against her, when Daniel arose
to convict the elders of false-witness, and they were straightway put
to death. It is the moment of Susannah's temptation that the artist
here depicts. "It is," says Hazlitt (p. 5), "as if the young Jewish
beauty had been just surprised in that unguarded spot--crouching down
in one corner of the picture, the face turned back with a mingled
expression of terror, shame, and unconquerable sweetness, and the whole
figure, with the arms crossed, shrinking into itself with bewitching
grace and modesty." But Hazlitt never took notes, and Susannah's arms
are not crossed--nor is her expression quite so naïve as he describes.