Guido Reni and Rome: Nature and Devotion

On the Baroque painter’s early years in Rome and the origins of his vision of landscape painting

The impetus behind this volume was the Italian state’s 2020 acquisition of the painting Landscape with a Country Dance (1601-02) by the Italian Baroque painter Guido Reni (1575-1642). The artwork’s return to its native land at the Galleria Borghese marked a prime opportunity to rediscover the artist and his oeuvre, particularly the landscapes and rural scenes he created during his early years in Rome. Nature and Devotion tracks the new vision of nature–a fusion of science and poetry–that Reni developed alongside his contemporaries (who included Niccolo dell'Abate, Annibale Carracci, Domenichino and Giovanni Battista Viola). Following the artist’s course up until his breakthrough fresco for the Casino of Cardinal Scipione Borghese, Aurora (1613-14), the volume conveys how the impressions he gathered during his early years in Rome established a robust foundation upon which he built his later masterpieces.