Towards the close of the sixteenth and early part of the seventeenth century, the progress of decline was stayed for a time by the establishment of a new school. This was the Bolognese or Eclectic, founded by the Caracci, and which, in some measure, was the concentration of all the Lombard artists, who, separately following, in a great measure, the style of Corregio, had yet never united into a seminary of which that master could be called the head. The grand principle of this new academy, and thence deriving the appellation of Eclectic, was to select what was most excellent in the primitive schools; design from the Florentine, and grace from the Roman, from the Venetian color, from the Lombard light and shade, uniting all in due proportion and harmonious effect. The plan was arduous and aspiring, but the idea was good; the failure which ensued, for, abating the success of individual talent, the final result disappointed expectation, arose not from the intention pursued, but from the means employed. The Bolognese masters sought to effect the combination of these elements by rules of art, instead of taking nature as the connecting and vivifying principle. In the study of her effects they would have found the very union they contemplated--the previous separation, in fact, of pictorial excellence into departments, had been occasioned by partial or peculiar views of nature. Still the success of the attempt was great, and threw the last rays of glory over the native seat of modern art.
The founders and great ornaments of this school were the three Caracci; Ludovico the eldest, born in 1555, died in 1619, was the instructer of his two cousins--Agostino, three years younger, and Annibale, born in 1560, both of whom Ludovico survived. The association formed by these relatives was, in the strictest sense of the term, a _school_ of design, and conducted upon an admirable plan; students being instructed in anatomy, in drawing, in painting, and in the principles of composition, by actual superintendence and personal instruction. The unaffected breadth, solemnity, yet grace of effect--the simplicity of character, which distinguish the works of Ludovico, are justly admired. Augustino excelled more in the theory than the practice of his art; but one of the best pictures of this school, the St Jerome of the Certosa, is his. Engravings by him are numerous and valuable. Of all the Caracci, Annibale is the most magnificent in his compositions, and may be taken as the true representative of the school; bold, splendid, broad, his pencil deals its touches with firm, almost unerring certainty, to its aim--but too frequently that aim is style in art, rather than truth in feeling.