| Caravaggio |
Article Index for Caravaggio |
Shopping Caravaggio |
Articles about Caravaggio |
Website Links For Caravaggio |
Information AboutCaravaggio |
|
around 1621.]] Michelangelo Merisi da Caravaggio ( 29 September 1571 – 18 July 1610 ) was an Italian Artist active in Rome , Naples , Malta and Sicily between 1593 and 1610 . He is commonly placed in the Baroque school, on which he had a formative influence. Even in his own lifetime Caravaggio was enigmatic, fascinating, and dangerous. He burst upon the Rome art scene in 1600, and never afterwards lacked commissions or patrons, yet handled his success atrociously. The earliest published notice on him, dating from 1604 and describing his lifestyle some three years previously, tells how "after a fortnight's work he will swagger about for a month or two with a sword at his side and a servant following him, from one ball-court to the next, ever ready to engage in a fight or an argument, so that it is most awkward to get along with him."Floris Claes van Dijk, a contemporary of Caravaggio in Rome in 1601, quoted in John Gash, "Caravaggio", p.13. The quotation originates in Carl (or Karel) van Mander's ''Het Schilder-Boek'' of 1604, translated in full in Howard Hibbard, "Caravaggio". In 1606 he killed another young man in a brawl and fled Rome with a price on his head. In Malta in 1608 he was involved in another brawl, and yet another in Naples in 1609, possibly a deliberate attempt on his life by unidentified enemies. By the next year, after a career of little more than a decade, he was dead. Huge new churches and palazzi were being built in Rome in the decades of the late 16th and early 17th centuries, and paintings were needed to fill them. The Counter-Reformation Church was searching for an authentic religious art with which to counter the threat of Protestantism, and for this task the artificial conventions of Mannerism , which had ruled art for almost a century, no longer seemed adequate. Caravaggio's novelty was a radical Naturalism which combined close physical observation with a dramatic, even theatrical, approach to Chiaroscuro , the use of light and shadow. In Caravaggio's hands this new style was the vehicle for authentic and moving spirituality. Famous while he lived, Caravaggio was almost completely forgotten in the centuries after his death, and it was only in the last few decades of the 20th century that he has been rediscovered. Yet despite this his influence on the common style which eventually emerged from the ruins of Mannerism, the new Baroque , was profound. Andre Berne-Joffroy, Paul Valery ’s secretary, said of him: "What begins in the work of Caravaggio is, quite simply, modern painting."Quoted in Gilles Lambert, "Caravaggio", p.8. BIOGRAPHY Early life (1571-1592) '', 1601 . Oil on canvas, 230 x 175 cm. Cerasi Chapel , Santa Maria Del Popolo , Rome .]] Caravaggio’s father, Fermo Merisi, was a household administrator and architect-decorator to Francesco Sforza, Marchese of Caravaggio , a town some thirty kilometers from Milan . His mother, Lucia Aratori, came from a propertied family of the same district. None of the Merisi children — Michelangelo was Lucia's eldest — are listed on the baptismal records from Caravaggio, and all were probably born in Milan, where the Marchese had his court and where their father lived. In 1576 the family moved to Caravaggio to escape a plague which ravaged Milan. Caravaggio’s father died there in 1577 . It is assumed, but not certain, that he grew up in Caravaggio; it is equally possible that some of his childhood may have passed in Milan, where it appears his family kept up connections with the Sforzas and with the powerful Colonna family, who were allied by marriage with the Sforzas and destined to play a major role in Caravaggio's later life.The Colonna were one of the leading aristocratic families in Rome, and part of a network of powerful connections who supported the artist at crucial points in his life. Thus in 1606, following the death of Ranuccio, he fled first to the Colonna estates south of Rome, then on to Naples where Costanza Colonna Sforza, widow of Francesco Sforza, in whose husband's household Caravaggio's father had held a position, maintained a palace. Costanza's brother Ascanio was Cardinal-Protector of the Kingdom of Naples, another brother, Marzio, was an advisor to the Spanish Viceroy, and a sister was married into the important Neapolitan Carafa family - connections which might help explain the cornucopia of major commissions which fell into Caravaggio's lap in that city. Costanza's son Fabrizio Sforza Colonna, Knight of Malta and general of the Order's galleys, appears to have facilitated his arrival in the island in 1607 and his escape the next year, and he stayed in Costanza's Neapolitan palazzo on his return there in 1609. These connections are treated in most biographies and studies - see, for example, Catherine Puglisi, "Caravaggio", p.258, for a brief outline. Helen Langdon, "Caravaggio: A Life", ch.12 and 15, and Peter Robb, "M", pp.398ff and 459ff, give a fuller account. In 1584 he was apprenticed for four years to the painter Simone Peterzano of Milan, described in the contract of apprenticeship as a pupil of of Germany than to the stylised formality and grandeur of Roman Mannerism . Rome (1592-1600) '', c. 1593. Oil on canvas, 67 x 53 cm. Galleria Borghese , Rome .]] In mid-1592 he arrived in Rome, “naked and extremely needy ... without fixed address and without provision ... short of money.”Quoted without attribution in Robb, p.35, apparently based on the three primary sources, Mancini, Baglione and Bellori, all of whom depict Caravaggio's early Roman years as a period of extreme poverty (see references below). A few months later he was doing hack-work for the highly successful (''Glomerella cingulata'')." Caravaggio's Fruit: A Mirror on Baroque Horticulture (Jules Janick, Department of Horticulture and Landscape Architecture, Purdue University, West Lafayette, Indiana) Allied with this type of realism is another, the psychological: the boy is clearly a little bored posing with the heavy basket, but amused and compliant; his bared shoulder is treated with such physical desire that it is quite clear how the painter felt about his model; but the boy himself, while amiable, gives no sign of reciprocating the feeling. '', c. 1594. Oil on canvas, 107 x 99 cm. Kimbell Art Museum , Fort Worth , Texas .]] Caravaggio left Cesari in January 1594, determined to make his own way. His fortunes were at their lowest ebb, yet it was now that he forged some extermely important friendships, with the painter '' — showing another unsophisticated boy falling the victim of card cheats — is even more psychologically complex, and perhaps Caravaggio’s first true masterpiece. Like the '' Fortune Teller '' it was immensely popular, and over 50 copies survive. More importantly, it attracted the patronage of Cardinal Francesco Maria Del Monte , one of the leading connoisseurs in Rome, and henceforth Caravaggio would share an apartment with Minniti in the cardinal’s Palazzo Madama .The relationship may have been a stormy one: Minniti's Sicilian biographer, writing in 1724, relates that he eventually "settled down and took a wife, because he found the stormy escapades of his friend distasteful." Langdon, p.153. For Del Monte and his wealthy art-loving circle Caravaggio executed a number of intimate chamber-pieces — '' The Musicians '', '' The Lute Player '', a tipsy '' Bacchus '', an allegorical but realistic '' Boy Bitten By A Lizard '' — featuring Minniti and yet more boy models. These poetic, introverted, cryptically homoerotic worksDonald Posner's "Caravaggio's Early Homo-erotic Works" (''Art Quarterly 24'' (1971), pp.301-26) was the first to broach the subject of Caravaggio's sexuality and its relationship to his art. The most recent biographers and commentators generally take a homoerotic content for granted, but the subject is complex. For a perceptive and well-sourced discussion, see Brian Tovar's Sins against nature: Homoeroticism and the epistemology of Caravaggio . were a step away from the psychological realism that had begun to emerge a few years earlier. The realism returned with Caravaggio’s first paintings on religious themes, and the emergence of remarkable spirituality. The first of these was the '''', '' Martha And Mary Magdalene '', '' Judith Beheading Holofernes '', a '' Sacrifice Of Isaac '', a '' Saint Francis Of Assisi In Ecstasy '', and a '' Rest On The Flight Into Egypt ''. The works, while viewed by a comparatively limited circle, increased Caravaggio's fame with both connoisseurs and his fellow-artists. But a true reputation would depend on public commissions, and for these it was necessary to look to the Church. 'Most famous painter in Rome' (1600-1606) ''. 1599-1600. Oil on canvas, 322 x 340 cm. Contarelli Chapel , San Luigi Dei Francesi , Rome . The beam of light, which enters the picture from the direction of a real window, expresses in the blink of an eye the conversion of St Matthew, the hinge on which his destiny will turn, with no flying angels, parting clouds or other artifacts.]] In 1599, presumably through the influence of Del Monte, Caravaggio contracted to decorate the Contarelli Chapel in the church of San Luigi Dei Francesi . The two works making up the commission, the ''Martyrdom Of Saint Matthew'' and '' Calling Of Saint Matthew '', delivered in 1600, were an immediate sensation. Caravaggio’s heightened Chiaroscuro brought high drama to his subjects, while his acutely observed realism brought a new level of emotional intensity. This heightened form of chiaroscuro is known as Tenebrism , and he is credited with popularizing it. Opinion among Caravaggio’s artist peers was polarized. Some denounced him for various perceived failings, notably his insistence on painting from life, without drawings, but for the most part he was hailed as the saviour of art: "The painters then in Rome were greatly taken by this novelty, and the young ones particularly gathered around him, praised him as the unique imitator of nature, and looked on his work as miracles."Bellori. The passage continues: " younger painters outdid each other in copying him, undressing their models and raising their lights; and rather than setting out to learn from study and instruction, each readily found in the streets or squares of Rome both masters and models for copying nature." Caravaggio went on to secure a string of prestigious commissions for religious works featuring violent struggles, grotesque decapitations, torture and death. For the most part each new painting increased his fame, but a few were rejected by the various bodies for whom they were intended, at least in their original forms, and had to be re-painted or find new buyers. The essence of the problem was that while Caravaggio’s dramatic intensity was appreciated, his realism was seen by some as unacceptably vulgar.For an outline of the Counter-Reformation Church's policy on decorum in art, see Giorgi, p.80. For a more detailed discussion, see Gash, p.8ff; and for a discussion of the part played by notions of decorum in the rejection of "St Matthew and the Angel" and "Death of the Virgin", see Puglisi, pp.179-188. His first version of '' on the ground?” “Because!” “Is the horse God?” “No, but he stands in God’s light!”Quoted without attribution in Lambert, p.66. '' (detail). 1601 - 1606 . Oil on canvas, 396 x 245 cm. Louvre , Paris .]] Other works included the deeply moving '', the idea that the Mother of God did not die in any ordinary sense but was assumed into Heaven. The replacement altarpiece commissioned (from one of Caravaggio's most able followers, Carlo Saraceni ), showed the Virgin not dead, as Caravaggio had painted her, but seated and dying; and even this was rejected, and replaced with a work which showed the Virgin not dying, but ascending into Heaven with choirs of angels. In any case, the rejection did not mean that Caravaggio or his paintings were out of favour. The ''Death of the Virgin'' was no sooner taken out of the church than it was purchased by the Duke of Mantua, on the advice of Rubens , and later acquired by Charles I of England before entering the French royal collection in 1671. ''. One secular piece from these years is '' Amor Victorious '', painted in 1602 for Vincenzo Giustiniani , a member of Del Monte’s circle. The model was named in a memoir of the early 17th century as "Cecco", the diminutive for Francesco. He is possibly Francesco Boneri, identified with an artist active in the period 1610-1625 and known as Cecco Del Caravaggio ('Caravaggio's Ceccho')While Gianni Papi's identification of Cecco del Caravaggio as Francesco Boneri is widely accepted, the evidence connecting Boneri to Caravaggio's servant and model in the early 1600s is circumstantial. See Robb, pp193-196., carrying a bow and arrows and trampling symbols of the warlike and peaceful arts and sciences underfoot. He is unclothed, and it is difficult to accept this grinning urchin as the Roman god Cupid – as difficult as it was to accept Caravaggio’s other semi-clad adolescents as the various angels he painted in his canvases, wearing much the same stage-prop wings. The point, however, is the intense yet ambiguous reality of the work: it is simultaneously Cupid and Cecco, as Caravaggio’s Virgins were simultaneously the Mother of Christ and the Roman courtesans who modeled for them. Exile and death (1606-1610) '', c. 1610. Oil on canvas, 94 x 125 cm. Metropolitan Museum Of Art , New York . In the Chiaroscuro a woman points two fingers at Peter while a soldier points a third. Caravaggio tells the story of Peter denying Christ three times with this symbolism.]] Caravaggio led a tumultuous life. He was notorious for brawling, even in a time and place when such behavior was commonplace, and the transcripts of his police records and trial proceedings fill several pages. On . There, outside the jurisdiction of the Roman authorities and protected by the Colonna family, the most famous painter in Rome became the most famous in Naples. His connections with the Colonnas led to a stream of important church commissions, including the '' Madonna Of The Rosary '', and '' The Seven Works Of Mercy ''. Despite his success in Naples, after only a few months in the city Caravaggio left for 1608 and, after verifying that the accused had failed to appear although summoned four times, voted unanimously to expel their ''putridum et foetidum'' ex-brother. Caravaggio was expelled, not for his crime, but for having left Malta without permission (i.e., escaping). '' (1609), Museo Regionale Uffici , Messina .]] |
|
|