ARTE DI CARAVAGGIO
@culturaltutor
The art of Caravaggio is filled with shadow, violence, and psychological complexity. He was the most popular and controversial painter of his era, a radical artist and volatile man who died in exile. This is the story of the first artistic rebel...
Michelangelo Merisi da Caravaggio was born in 1571 in Milan, northern Italy, where he first trained as a painter. The world of Italian art in his youth was dominated by what has been retrospectively called Mannerism, a style which appeared in the 1520s. Mannerism was a reaction to the High Renaissance, when legendary artists like Leonardo, Raphael, and Michelangelo had seemingly perfected art. Their grace and harmony had been replaced by great theatricality, chaotic compositions, and elongated human forms. It was an awkard, intellectual style - one which had no appeal to Caravaggio.
In 1592 he fled Milan after (allegedly) killing a civil guard. He arrived in Rome penniless and joined the workshop of Giuseppe Cesari, which mass-produced paintings featuring flowers and fruit.
But Caravaggio was an ambitious man. He left Cesari's workshop in 1594 to embark on a solo career. That same year he painted The Cardsharps, striking for its realistic depiction of a scene from daily life. It was an immediate success - fifty copies were made for further sale.
Here was something new. For while Renaissance and Mannerist art had presented an idealised realism, Caravaggio was interested in how people *actually* looked, however plain or humble. And that's how he depicted religious figures, which drew plenty of criticism.
Penitent Mary Magdalene (1597)
Caravaggio also infused his art with unusual emotional intensity - perhaps reflecting his own passionate nature. Emotion in art wasn't new, but it had rarely been portrayed with such force. This wasn't just physical realism, but psychological realism.
Medusa (1595)
In 1595, with his reputation growing quickly, Caravaggio was patronised by the wealthy Cardinal del Monte, for whom he painted St Francis of Assissi in Ecstacy in 1595. Here is revealed the third of the elements which define Caravaggio's work - his use of chiaroscuro.
Saint Francis of Assisi in ecstasy (1595)
Chiaroscuro refers to the contrast of light and dark in paintings. It was a well-known technique, but Caravaggio took it to another level.
He shrouded his scenes in thick shadow and used light sparingly, leaving nothing in between - a style which has been called "tenebrism".
Rome was a competitive place, but by the late 1590s Caravaggio stood out from the crowd.
His radical paintings exist in a world of their own, taking well-known stories and recasting them in entirely new ways, shocking in their realism and brutality but rapturous in their drama.
David and Goliath (1599)
Caravaggio's art - mysterious, dramatic, subtle, psychologically complex, haunted by violence - seems to reflect his personality. He had a history of violent encounters and was an ill-tempered man.
And, as in Judith and Holofernes, his work is spellbinding.
Judith and Holofernes (1599)
He was in out of jail for most of his life, usually because of brawling, carrying weapons illegally, or refusing to pay rent. Caravaggio was even sued by fellow painter Giovanni Baglione for writing offensive poems about him.
Here's how one observer described his appearance:
In 1599 Caravaggio was commissioned to decorate the Contarelli Chapel with paintings of St Matthew, where he made the Biblical past startlingly present.
It was after this that his artistic celebrity reached fever-pitch - he became the most famous and talked-about artist in Rome.
The Calling of St Matthew (1601)
But Caravaggio's radical realism was not without scandal - one of his paintings for the Contarelli Chapel was rejected. Its depiction of Matthew struggling to write, dirty and in ragged clothes, was rejected for being offensive and undignified.
So he painted another one.
Soon after completing the Contarelli Chapel he was commissioned to decorate the Cesari Chapel.
To give some sense of how revolutionary Caravaggio was, consider another depiction of the Conversion of St Paul from a few decades before: notice the shift from idealism to realism.
Conversion of Saint Paul by Taddeo Zuccari (1541)
Conversion on the Way to Damascus (1601)
And so in the early 1600s style reached full maturity; in the Taking of Christ we can see an astonishing level of draughtsmanship - the scene is almost photorealistic - and every face filled with psychological complexity, all framed by intense tenebrism.
The Taking of Christ (1602)
Biblical stories depicted for centuries in Western art had never been seen like this. Caravaggio portrayed venerated saints like passersby on the streets of Rome.
Though controversial, he imagined what they must have really been like, emphasising their poverty and ordinariness.
The incredulity of Saint Thomas (1602)
And he became a sensation.
Seemingly everybody wanted a painting by Caravaggio, from art collectors to churches - the commissions came pouring in.
In 1605 he painted St Jerome Writing for Cardinal Scipione Borghese.
Saint Jerome Writing (1606)
But in 1606 Caravaggio was forced to flee Rome after killing the wealthy and well-connected Giovanni Tommasoni in a fight, allegedly over one of his models, gambling debts, or a tennis match.
He travelled between Naples, Sicily, and Malta, where he found plenty of patrons.
Beheading of John the Baptist (1608)
In 1609 Caravaggio was attacked and badly wounded - reports of his death were circulated.
He survived, and thanks to Cardinal Borghese it seemed like he would get a pardon for his crimes. But in 1610, while returning to Rome, Caravaggio died in mysterious circumstances, aged 38.
Salome with the Head of John the Baptist (1609)
Caravaggio had an immediate influence on an entire generation of younger artists. Known as the "Caravaggisti", they directly emulated his tenebrism and realism. One of the most talented of this group was Artemisia Gentileschi:
Judith and her Maidservant (1625)
But the story of Caravaggio must include his contemporary Annibale Carracci (1560-1609), whose styles directly contrasted.
Their works, clashing strongly, can be seen together in the Cesari Chapel - each shaped the course of art in their own way.
But whether Carracci or Caravaggio, the decades-long search for a solution to the problem of how to follow the High Renaissance had been solved.
Mannerism was over and the Baroque was born, an emotionally expressive, dramatic, and increasingly realistic style. Caravaggio may be one of the world's most famous painters now, but that wasn't always the case. As tastes change over time, so too the reputations of artists fluctuate. Despite his influence he was forgotten after his death and only properly reevaluated in the 20th century.
An artist whose life and work are deeply intertwined, Caravaggio and his world of shadows - mysterious, visceral, psychologically profound - are utterly engrossing.
And here is the man himself, in typical Caravaggian style... in a self-portait as the decapitated head of Goliath.
