The Fall of the Giants (1641/47): Artwork and History

The Fall of the Giants (1641/47) is in the Art Institute of Chicago collection. The museum lists its creator attribution as Bartolomeo Coriolano (Italian, c. 1599-c. 1676) after Guido Reni (Italian, 1575-1642).

The work and its context

The Art Institute of Chicago describes the work:

This dramatic scene from Greek mythology depicts the battle for supremacy between the Giants (the earth-born children of Gaia, goddess of the Earth) and the heavenly gods of Mount Olympus. The Giants were defeated, and their banishment from the heavens established the cosmic order foundational to ancient Greek belief. The Bolognese painter Guido Reni designed this dynamic composition of heroic bodies tumbling from the skies specifically for translation into print. According to his early biographer, Reni, who was known for quiet religious compositions, wished to demonstrate that he could also depict the muscular nude in motion. Bartolomeo Coriolano was a member of Reni’s workshop, and a highly skilled practitioner of the chiaroscuro woodcut technique, which involved printing different blocks for each color layered on top of each other. A total of twelve blocks were used to print this technically ambitious work.

Object facts

• Title: The Fall of the Giants
• Date: 1641/47
• Artist attribution: Bartolomeo Coriolano (Italian, c. 1599-c. 1676) after Guido Reni (Italian, 1575-1642)
• Place of origin: Italy
• Medium: Chiaroscuro woodcut from three blocks on four sheets of ivory laid paper
• Dimensions: 88.1 × 62 cm (34 11/16 × 24 7/16 in.)
• Type: Print
• Department: Prints and Drawings
• Reference number: 1957.98a

Collection credit

Gift of Mr. Richard Zinser

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The description above is credited to the Art Institute of Chicago and reused under Creative Commons Attribution 4.0; HTML formatting has been converted to plain text. Other catalogue metadata and the public-domain image are provided under CC0 1.0.