The style of Guercino displays a strong contrast of light and shadow,
both exceedingly bold, yet mingled with great sweetness and harmony, and
a powerful effect in relief, a branch of art so much admired by
professors. "Hence," says Lanzi, "some foreigners bestowed upon him the
title of the Magician of Italian painting, for in him were renewed those
celebrated illusions of antiquity. He painted a basket of grapes so
naturally that a ragged urchin stretched out his hand to steal some of
the fruit. Often, in comparing the figures of Guido with those of
Guercino, one would say that the former had been fed with roses, and the
latter with flesh, as observed by one of the ancients."