Guercino

Typical of the streak of crude, often scatological humor that runs through genre scenes from the seventeenth century, this type of forthright and timeless caricature is more common in Guercino's satire than is the complex story of the Mocking of the village madman. The peasant at center, a brutish figure in ragged clothes, pulls a face as he fastens his pants, apparently appalled not by the smell of his own feces, but by the man defecating, unseen, behind a screen. The irony that such a crude-seeming character could take offense is a joke further emphasized by the juxtaposition of the elaborately dressed woman at right. This seemingly cruel drawing of the rough central figure is perhaps not reflective of Guercino's own true attitude toward the poor, however, if one considers his notably sympathetic drawing of the Beggar holding a broken jug. What is more, Guercino's early biographers note his particular kindness toward the lower classes, with Malvasia, for example, recording that Guercino was "affectionate for the poor, who flocked around him whenever he left his house, as if he were their father; he enjoyed conversing with them." Although the drawing has long been attributed to Guercino, Diane De Grazia and Nicholas Turner have raised the question of whether it might instead be by Pier Francesco Mola. As David Stone has noted, however, Guercino executed the drawing "in a rustic, purposely rozzo style to give it a special character," matching style to subject, thus accounting for the differences between this sheet and others by the artist. Moreover, the style of hatching and delineation of form, especially of the figure at left, seem distinctly Guercino's own, and the pen work has a delicate animation that is different from Mola's, as seen, for example, in the Morgan's similar Caricature of a man defecating. -- Catalog entry: Guercino : virtuoso draftsman, Morgan Library & Museum, 2019, p. 42.