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"A likeness in the tomb": Annibale's Self-Portrait Drawing in the J. Paul Getty Museum

2010; University of Chicago Press; Volume: 2; Linguagem: Inglês

10.1086/grj.2.23005406

2329-1249

Gail Feigenbaum,

Classical Antiquity Studies

"A likeness in the tomb": Annibale's Self-Portrait Drawing in the J.Paul Getty Museum Gail Feigenbaum He paid only so much attention to his beard and collar... Anmbaie s race was imprinted with studious melancholy and it was somewhat olivaster in color ing, with keen eyes, a generous brow, and a round nose. His hair tended toward blondness; he did not shave but rounded his beard, allowing it to grow naturally.1 — Giovanni Pietro Bellori, 1672 A small pen drawing with an old attribution to Annibale Carracci (1550-1609; and a traditional identification as his self-portrait was acquired by the Getty in 1996 (fig. 1).2 At a first glance this self-portrait seems to signal a readiness to "serve as the frontispiece to some future biography," but on closer inspection Annibale makes a sorry appearance, slumped and staring wanly into space, overwhelmed by a niche framed with vaguely omi nous fauna.3 Since it first came to light in 1993, the sheet has been published and exhibited several times, but as is often the case in drawings scholarship, what little has been writ ten about it is scattered among brief catalog entries and footnotes.4 The Getty drawing has yet to be integrated into the small corpus of Annibale's self-portraits; indeed, such consideration would reinforce the notion that such a corpus—in the sense of a series of explorations into the mind, identity, and representation of the man and the artist, in the tradition of Diirer and in anticipation of Rembrandt and Poussin—exists.5 Only recently have scholars begun the work ot interpreting the seir-portraits and constructing a view of Annibale as a self-conscious and reflective intellect.6 This repre sents a process of recovery, for in doing so, scholars are working against a view of Anni bale, put forth most influentially by Denis Mahon and Donald Posner in the middle of the last century, as an artist motivated "by a quite uncomplicated desire for success and by a passionate, but almost craftsmanlike, urge to perfect his art," and as an artist who did not possess "the intellectual or spiritual resources that enabled artists like Michel angelo, Poussin, and Caravaggio to respond directly and profoundly to general cultural trends of their times."7 A current of resistance to "over-intellectualizing" Annibale can still be sensed, despite a steady accumulation of evidence and argument to the contrary. The explicit refutation of an Annibale lacking in intellectual depth and self-conscious reflection began with Charles Dempsey's reaction to Posner's view (most fully expressed in his monograph of 1977) and continued in Clare Robertson's monograph of 2008. The Getty Research Journal, no. 2 (2010): 19-38 © J. Paul Getty Trust •y Fig. l. Annibale Carracci (Italian, 1550-1609). Self-Portrait, early 1580s, pen and brown ink 13.5 x 10.8 cm (5s/i6 x 4V4 in.). Los Angeles, J. Paul Getty Museum (96.GA.323) 20 GETTY RESEARCH JOURNAL, NO. 2 (2010) two scholars point out that we should now beware the danger or "underinterpretation rather than "over-intellectualizing."8 Scholars who have previously written about the Getty selr-portrait have remarked on the impression of melancholy, noted the association of the imagery with death, and even evoked the term parody, yet they have hesitated at the brink of a conclusion.9 Daniele Benati's brief observation takes the greatest risk: "it strikes as a self-portrait in death, delirious and lost."10 The analysis presented here pursues such implications and consid ers the drawing in relation to other self-portraits by Annibale, recognizing in it the antici pation of a theme realized more fully, if enigmatically, in his best-known self-portrait, now in the State Hermitage Museum in St. Petersburg (see fig. 3).11 Facts and History Annibale was the youngest in a family ot three artists who began their careers in Bologna around 1580 and who are credited with reinvigorating painting in Italy after a decline that was perceived to have begun with the death of Michelangelo and his gen eration.12 With his elder brother Agostino and cousin Ludovico, Annibale set up a work shop and...