The squinter triumphs

To be called ‘the squinter’, which is what ‘il Guercino’ means, might not seem an auspicious nickname for an artist, but it doesn’t appear to have stood in the way of Giovanni Francesco Barbieri (1591–1666), who became one of the most famous Italian artists of the 17th century. Not only was he a distinguished Baroque painter, he was also a very fine draughtsman, and it is this aspect of his achievement which is celebrated in a glorious new exhibition at the Courtauld. Guercino’s quarter-centenary was in 1991, and was appropriately commemorated, but there’s no need of an excuse for a show of this quality. It’s quite simply ravishing.

We are fortunate in the fact that so many of Guercino’s drawings survive and that his career is well documented. We have something like 40 per cent of his output, which may not sound much until you compare it with the meagre 1 per cent of Michelangelo’s drawings which exist today. Working drawings were not generally valued or preserved (Michelangelo, for instance, burnt a lot) but Guercino was unusually attached to his, and kept them by him. Although they are often not in particularly good condition — as a result of the corrosive action of the iron-gall ink on the paper — there are enough to make a thorough assessment of Guercino’s genius. However, he was not always so highly valued, and most of the drawings on view were acquired inexpensively by the collector and founder member of the National Art Collections Fund, Sir Robert Witt, who bequeathed them to the Courtauld in 1952. In more recent decades, the scholar and collector Sir Denis Mahon has been instrumental in bringing Guercino’s achievement to our attention and pressing for a proper evaluation of his career.