Resumen de Traits d'esprit imperceptibles. Six dessins d'Agostino et Annibale Caracci
According to Malvasia, the Carracci studio was not only a place devoted to the creation of paintings, but also an entertainment space where it was in vogue to joke while working. This state of mind also bursts through in some of their pictorial creations, as for example, on the vault of the Farnese Gallery, the feigned image of a "putto" urinating on the very real spectators. There are also works, in this case, preparatory drawings where the level of perceptibility of these visual witticisms is faint.
The challenge of this article is to present them by demonstrating that the Carraccis played on two essential functions of the preparatory drawing in order to bring out, by modulating them, the graphic witticisms: a "genetic function" whose motive is to put into place a "disposotion" through the research methods characteristic of drawing, as in the reworking or the variant, and an "iconographical" order consisting of making these research methods potential iconographical motifs.
