Brustbild eines jungen Mannes mit gebeugten Armen 

Agostino Carracci made this drawing of a young man in pen and ink, probably sometime in the late 16th century. Drawings like this one, made in Bologna, were often produced in preparation for larger paintings. But they were also part of a broader phenomenon: the rise of art academies. The Carracci family themselves founded one of the earliest, most influential art academies in Europe. The purpose of these institutions was to regularize artistic training, to set standards for what good art looked like, and to elevate the status of artists themselves. Drawings of live models, like this one, were a standard part of academic training. But they also helped artists develop a visual language for expressing emotions. Here, the boy’s downcast eyes and the way he wrings his hands suggest a mood of melancholy or pensiveness. To understand this work better, we might consult the records of the Carracci academy, which would tell us more about the purposes and methods of art education at the time.