page_title: Guido Reni
section_title: Work in Naples and return to Bologna
hierarchical_section_title: Guido Reni / Biography / Work in Naples and return to Bologna
context_page_description: Guido Reni was an Italian painter of the Baroque period, although his works showed a classical manner, similar to Simon Vouet, Nicholas Poussin, and Philippe de Champaigne. He painted primarily religious works, but also mythological and allegorical subjects. Active in Rome, Naples, and his native Bologna, he became the dominant figure in the Bolognese School that emerged under the influence of the Carracci.
context_section_description: Returning to Bologna more or less permanently after 1614, Reni established a successful and prolific studio there.  He was commissioned to decorate the cupola of the chapel of Saint Dominic in Bologna's Basilica of San Domenico between 1613 and 1615, resulting in the radiant fresco Saint Dominic in Glory, a masterpiece that can stand comparison with the exquisite Arca di San Domenico below it.  He also contributed to the decoration of the Rosary Chapel in the same church, with a Resurrection; and in 1611 he had already painted for San Domenico a superb Massacre of the Innocents, now in the Pinacoteca Nazionale di Bologna, which became an important reference for the French Neoclassic style, as well as a model for details in Picasso's Guernica.
  In 1614–15 he painted The Israelites Gathering Manna for a chapel in the cathedral of Ravenna.
  Leaving Bologna briefly in 1618, Reni traveled to Naples to complete a commission to paint a ceiling in a chapel of the cathedral of San Gennaro. However, in Naples, other prominent local painters, including Corenzio, Caracciolo and Ribera, were vehemently resistant to competitors, and according to rumor, conspired to poison or otherwise harm Reni (as may have befallen Domenichino in Naples after him).  Reni, who had a great fear of being poisoned (and of witchcraft), chose not to outstay his welcome.
  After leaving Rome, Reni alternately painted in different styles, but displayed less eclectic tastes than many of Carracci's trainees. For example, his altarpiece for Samson Victorious formulates stylized poses, like those characteristic of Mannerism. In contrast, his Crucifixion and his Atlanta and Hipomenes depict dramatic diagonal movement coupled with the effects of light and shade that portray the more Baroque influence of Caravaggio. His turbulent yet realistic  Massacre of the Innocents (Pinacoteca, Bologna) is painted in a manner reminiscent of a late Raphael. In 1625, Prince Władysław Sigismund Vasa of Poland visited the artist's workshop in Bologna during his visit to Western Europe. The close rapport between the painter and the Polish prince resulted in the acquisition of drawings and paintings. In 1630, Reni painted the Pallion del Voto with images of Saints Ignatius of Loyola and Francis Xavier, painted during the plague of 1630 that afflicted Bologna.
  By the 1630s, Reni's painting style became looser, less impastoed, and dominated by lighter colors. A compulsive gambler, Reni was often in financial distress despite the steady demand for his paintings. According to his biographer Carlo Cesare Malvasia, Reni's need to recoup gambling losses resulted in rushed execution and multiple copies of his works produced by his workshop.  Among the paintings of his last years are many unfinished works.
  Reni's themes are mostly biblical and mythological.  He painted few portraits; those of Sixtus V, and Cardinal Bernardino Spada are among the most noteworthy, along with one of his mother (in the Pinacoteca Nazionale di Bologna) and a few self-portraits from both his youth and his old age. (The so‑called "Beatrice Cenci", formerly ascribed to Reni and praised by generations of admirers, is now regarded as a doubtful attribution. Beatrice Cenci was executed in Rome before Reni ever lived there and so could not have sat for the portrait.) Many etchings are attributed to Guido Reni, some after his own paintings and some after other masters.  They are spirited, in a light style of delicate lines and dots.  Reni's technique was used by the Bolognese school and was the standard for Italian printmakers of his time.
  Reni died in Bologna in 1642. He was buried there in the Rosary Chapel of the Basilica of San Domenico; the painter Elisabetta Sirani, whose father had been Reni's pupil and who was considered by some to be the artistic reincarnation of Reni, was later interred in the same tomb.
caption: Saint Joseph and the Christ Child, 1640
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