Bonone, Carlo

, an eminent artist, was born at Ferra.ra in 1569, and died in 1632. He was the scholar of Bastaruolo, and the rival of Scarsellino, whose suavity of manner he attempted to eclipse by energy and grandeur. He studied at Bologna, for that purpose, the Carracci; at Rome, with nature and the antique, perhaps the Roman style; at Venice, Paolo, and at Parma, Corregio. In compositions of a few figures only, he resembles Lod. Carracci sometimes to a degree of delusion; but in works of numerous grouping, such as the “Feast of Herod,” and the “Nuptials of Cana,” at Ferrara, and chiefly in the “Supper of Ahasuerus,” at Ravenna, he rivals in abundance and arrangement the ornamental style of Paolo. At St. Maria in Vado at Ferrara, his science in Corregiesque fore-shortening and forcible effects of chiaroscuro, fixed and astonished the eye of Guercino. His cabinet pictures possess a high degree of finish. That such powers should not hitherto have procured Bonone an adequate degree of celebrity in the annals of painting, proves only, that no felicity of imitation can ever raise its possessors to the honours of originality and invention. ²