TY - THES T1 - Reinventing Guercino: Prints, Pedagogy, and the Role of Imitation Y1 - 2022 A1 - Schrimsher, Kimberly KW - Painting KW - Seventeenth Century KW - Southern Europe and Mediterranean AB - The printed drawing book emerged in Italy at the turn of the seventeenth century and painters such as Giovanni Battista Barbieri (1591-1666), or Guercino, embraced the genre. By 1638 Guercino had published two versions of his own engraved by Oliviero Gatti and Francesco Curti, respectively. Guercino's manuals differ from those by his contemporaries because they present a curated selection of useful subjects for an aspiring painter to copy rather than haphazardly-arranged figural studies. Past assessments of Guercino's drawing books often discuss them in isolation and focus more on the first publication. Yet, seicento viewers saw the two manuals as intimately connected as evidenced by the afterlives of Guercino's drawings books and their subsequent republications in four countries.
When considered together, the drawing books reveal that Guercino's approach to painting remained consistent throughout his career despite the painter's stylistic transformation during the late 1620s. They further demonstrate that Guercino relied on a visual vocabulary in the creation of his canvases that was simultaneously imitative and innovative. In order to produce these drawing books, Guercino reflected on the act of making, and I will argue that the books not only teach viewers how to imitate the master but how to become an artist in their own right. The printed drawing books ultimately provide the framework for how to approach and understand Guercino's early and late paintings. PB - Emory ER -