In the eyes of G. B. Passeri, a contemporary biographer, Guido Reni was "the noblest, most majestic painter who ever lived- not only in my own opinion, but by common consent.” Reni, the most celebrated Italian painter of the seventeenth century, was…
This painting is a late work of Reni, demonstrating qualities of rapidity and self-assurance. At that time Reni had abandoned the smooth finish that had been characteristic of his earlier work in favor of a slightly looser and more animated surface.…
“The Archangel Michael” is one of Guido’s most famous works painted in his second manner when he was strongly under Raphael’s influence. The single devotional figures of the Archangel Michael usually depict him as combining the characters of captain…
Guido Reni uses one of his most iconic compositions in this work. Sebastian was a Roman soldier who suffered martyrdom for his Christian faith under the reign of Diocletian and Maximian at the end of the third century. He became a patron saint of the…
According to Christian tradition, after meeting Christ, Mary Magdalene regretted her former sinful ways. The claims that Mary Magdalene was a prostitute leading a promiscuous way of life before meeting Jesus and repenting of her sinful ways, are…
The Aurora is a large Baroque ceiling fresco painted in 1614 by Guido Reni for the Casino, or garden house, adjacent to the Palazzo Pallavicini-Rospigliosi, in Rome. The casino and the fresco were commissioned by the Cardinal Scipione Borghese.…
The Separation of Night from Day happens in the story of the Creation. A winged celestial being or spirit, who has variously been called Dawn or Twilight, separates two figures with two wands. Day, a scantily clad young man, moves swiftly towards the…
The Pala della Peste (Altarpiece of the Bubonic Plague) depicts the Madonna and Child in Glory with the Patron Saints of Bologna: Petronius, Francis, Ignatius, Francis Xavier, Proculus of Bologna, and Florian.
This work features two naked bodies in basically sideways motion, and its subject is the race between the man-resisting girl Atalanta and her ardent suitor, Hippomenes; he has thrown a golden apple to distract her, and she is stooping to pick it up.…
The painting is an entirely autograph work by Guido Reni. It is a work of exceptional importance not only on account of its composition, which being especially pleasing, was immediately well received, but also for the extraordinarily high quality of…