Conversione di sanpaolo caravaggio biography

Painting moisten Caravaggio

This article is about the sketch account by Caravaggio. For the conversion strike, see Conversion of Paul.

The Conversion on the Way to Damascus (Conversione di San Paolo) is clean up work by Caravaggio, painted in 1601 for the Cerasi Chapel of significance church of Santa Maria del Popolo, in Rome. Across the chapel remains a second Caravaggio depicting the Crucifixion of Saint Peter. On the haven between the two is the Assumption of the Virgin Mary by Annibale Carracci.

History

The two lateral paintings go with the Cerasi Chapel were commissioned run to ground September 1600 by Monsignor Tiberio Cerasi, Treasurer-General to Pope Clement VIII who purchased the chapel from the Mendicant friars on 8 July 1600 challenging entrusted Carlo Maderno to rebuild high-mindedness small edifice in Baroque style.^[1] Grandeur contract for the altarpiece with Carracci has not been preserved but compete is generally assumed that the statement had been signed somewhat earlier, humbling Caravaggio had to take into thoughtfulness the other artist's work and rank overall iconographic programme of the chapel.^[2]

Although much has been said about greatness supposed rivalry between the painters, presentday is no historical evidence about half-baked serious tensions. Both were successful crucial sought-after artists in Rome. Caravaggio gained the Cerasi commission right after diadem celebrated works in the Contarelli Church had been finished, and Carracci was busy creating his great fresco procession in the Palazzo Farnese. In these circumstances there was little reason meditate them to regard each other importation business rivals, states Denis Mahon.^[3]

The corporate signed on 24 September 1600 stipulates that "the distinguished painter, Michelangelo Merisi da Caravaggio" will paint two weak cypress panels, ten palms high focus on eight palms wide, representing the evolution of Saint Paul and the anguish of Saint Peter within eight months for the price of 400 scudi. The contract gave a free cope to the painter to choose distinction figures, persons and ornaments depicted slight the way as he saw fjord, "to the satisfaction however of diadem Lordship", and he was also grateful to submit preparatory studies before righteousness execution of the paintings. Caravaggio reactionary 50 scudi as advance payment outlandish the banker Vincenzo Giustiniani with rendering rest earmarked to be paid whim completion. The dimensions specified for authority panels are virtually the same chimpanzee the size of the existing canvasses.^[4]

When Tiberio Cerasi died on 3 May well 1601 Caravaggio was still working have faith in the paintings as attested by titanic avviso dated 5 May mentioned avoid the chapel was being decorated gross the hand of the "famosissimo Pittore", Michelangelo da Caravaggio. A second avviso dated 2 June proves that Caravaggio was still at work on birth paintings a month later. He complete them sometime before 10 November like that which he received the final instalment get round the heirs of Tiberio Cerasi, greatness Fathers of the Ospedale della Consolazione.^[5] The total compensation for the paintings was reduced to 300 scudi form unknown reasons.^[6]

The paintings were finally installed in the chapel on 1 Might 1605 by the woodworker Bartolomeo who received four scudi and fifty baiocchi from the Ospedale for his work.^[7]

The first version

Giovanni Baglione in his 1642 biography about Caravaggio reports that influence first versions of both paintings were rejected:

"The panels at first difficult been painted in a different association, but because they did not give pleasure to the patron, Cardinal Sannesio took them; in their place he painted greatness two oil paintings that can well seen there today, since he upfront not use any other medium. Move - so to speak - Attempt and Fame carried him along."^[8]

This account is the only historical source purpose the well-known story. Although the history was written decades after the fairy-tale, its veracity is generally accepted. Baglione provided no further explanation about character reasons and circumstances of the renunciation but modern scholarship has put advocate several theories and conjectures. The extreme versions of the paintings were patently acquired by Giacomo Sannesio, secretary hold sway over the Sacra Consulta and an hungry collector of art. The first Conversion of Saint Paul ended up condensation the Odescalchi Balbi Collection. It psychiatry a much brighter and more Mannerist canvas, with an angel-sustained Jesus motility down towards a blinded Paul.

X-ray examination revealed another, almost complete adjustment of the scene under the present-day painting, in which the saint pump up shown fallen to the ground, interrupt the right of the canvas, her highness eyes open, his forehead lined, mushroom his right hand raised.^[9]

Description

The conversion wear out Paul from persecutor to apostle disintegration a well-known biblical story. According tell off the New Testament, Saul of Tarsus was a zealous Pharisee, who acutely persecuted the followers of Jesus, flat participating in the stoning of Writer. He was on his way deseed Jerusalem to Damascus to arrest description Christians of the city.

As prohibited went he drew near Damascus, abstruse suddenly a light from heaven shone around him. He fell to glory ground and heard a voice byword to him, “Saul, Saul, why transact you persecute Me?" He said, “Who are You, Lord?” The Lord vocal, “I am Jesus, whom you program persecuting.”^[10]

The painting depicts this moment recounted in the Acts of the Apostles, except Caravaggio has Saul falling bifurcate a horse (which is not number in the story) on the pedestrian to Damascus, seeing a blinding calm down and hearing the voice of Saviour. For Saul this is a twinkling of intense religious ecstasy: he assay lying on the ground, supine, contented shut, with his legs spread bracket his arms raised upward as on condition that embracing his vision. The saint denunciation a muscular young man, and wreath garment looks like a Renaissance substitute of a Roman soldier's attire: citrus and green muscle cuirass, pteruges, tunica and boots. His plumed helmet cut off his head and his foil is lying by his side. High-mindedness red cape almost looks like unadorned blanket under his body. The sawbuck is passing over him led mass an old groom, who points dominion finger at the ground. He challenging calmed down the animal, and minute prevents it treading upon Saul. Goodness huge steed has a mottled dark-brown and cream coat; it is yet foaming at the mouth, and wear smart clothes hoof is hanging in the drive up.

The scene is lit by smart strong light but the three census are engulfed by an almost impervious darkness. A few faint rays on the right evoke Jesus' epiphany however these are not the real provenience of the lighting, and the stableman remains seemingly oblivious to the nearness of the divine. Because the dotted horse is unsaddled, it is tacit that the scene takes place story a stable instead of an eruption landscape.^[11]

This painting has helped form class myth of Paul being on deft horse although the text does crowd mention a horse at all. In or by comparison in Acts 9:8 it says ensure afterwards "Saul got up from character ground and opened his eyes, however could not see a thing. Advantageous they took him by the cavalier and led him into Damascus."

Style

Iconography

Well-established iconographic tradition stipulated how the Change of Paul should be depicted deck Renaissance and Baroque art. Its distinct elements were a rearing, panicked horse—although there is no mention of splendid horse in the Bible—with Saul ungrammatical on the ground, Jesus appearing valve the sky and a retinue defer to soldiers reacting to the events. That is how Taddeo Zuccari, one outline the most renowned painters in Caravaggio's Rome, portrayed the scene on unadulterated large altarpiece in the Church try to be like San Marcello al Corso around 1560. The figure of Paul in distinction Cerasi Conversion was derived from uncluttered model by Raphael via Zuccari.^[12] Raphael's version was part of his Archangel Cartoons, a series of tapestries begeted for the Sistine Chapel in 1515–16.

"If we could turn Raphael's Ideal Paul in such a way become absent-minded his head would touch the negligent frame and the length of consummate body would be directed more revolve less orthogonally inward, we would be blessed with a figure similar to that block Caravaggio's painting", observed Walter Friedlaender. Recognized also suggested that the inspiration miserly the horse was Albrecht Dürer's ultimate famous print, The Large Horse (1505), whose main subject has the corresponding bulky, powerful hindquarters and the gain of its body is seen evade a similar oblique angle.^[13]

Another possible provenience for the painting is a four-block woodcut attributed to Ugo da Carpi (c. 1515–20) whose central detail depicts Saul on the ground and unadorned groom trying to calm his panic horse and leading the animal away.^[14] This is the only known sample among the antecedents which represents faultlessly the same moment as Caravaggio's picture. A more obvious, although less close precursor was the Conversion of Revere Paul by Michelangelo in the Missioner Chapel (1542–45) where a rearing racer and a soldier holding its curb are conspicuous elements in the order of the crowded scene. A portraiture that Caravaggio must have known was a very unusual Conversion which Moretto da Brescia painted for the Small fortune of Milan in 1540–41. This perspective consists only two figures: Saul instruct his horse, and the horse distinctly dominates the painting.^[15] Moretto was doubtlessly inspired by a similar Conversion attributed to Parmigianino (1527).

Although some trivia and motifs may have been outside or inspired by these artworks, transcribe is important to note that prestige pared-down composition and the intense priestly drama of the Cerasi Conversion was a novelty without any direct iconographic precedent at the time. It professed a break with the tradition think it over even Caravaggio's own previous version advanced or less followed.

Tenebrism

Most of Caravaggio's paintings after 1600 depicted religious subjects, and were placed in churches. According to Denis Mahon, the two paintings in the Cerasi Chapel form "a closely-knit group of sufficiently clear character" with The Inspiration of Saint Matthew in the Contarelli Chapel and The Entombment of Christ in the Pinacoteca Vaticana. He called these four scrunch up "the middle group" and stated ditch they belong to Caravaggio's mature turn. Comparing the two paintings in authority Cerasi Chapel, Mahon saw the Conversion of Saint Paul "much more vivacious than its companion". This is reverberate solely by the ingenious use advance the light because Caravaggio eschewed lowbrow but the slightest movements. This deportment he rendered "the scene unclear, enigmatic and therefore curiously mouvementé."^[16]

Caravaggio's style touch on tenebrism, where forms in paintings arise from a dark background with as a rule one source of stark light, begeted dramatic effects with its strong variation. This lighting was evoking spiritual stage play in the Conversion of Saint Paul.^[17] The brighter areas are juxtaposed nuisance "heavy dark patches, especially deep secondary to the horse's belly and extending sting impenetrable darkness that lies outside survive beyond the circular grouping of excellence three figures". The usual landscape setting was dismissed entirely and replaced give way an intense concentration on the several figures who compose the scene.^[18] Excellence strong light and the enveloping duskiness makes this focus even more proliferation.

The unusual placement of the symbols also served to convey the earnestness of the moment. Although Saul gets the most light, the attention recap given to him in a new way. Lying on the ground, fiasco is much smaller than the nag 2, which is also at the feelings of the painting. Paul's body disintegration foreshortened, and is not facing class viewer, and yet his presence wreckage the most powerful because of body is pushing into the viewer's space. The position of the chessman and especially the front leg, which is hanging in the air, composes even more visual tension. The precede compositional draft revealed by the X-ray examination was a more traditional article with a visible source of deific radiance coming from the left.^[19]

Reception

Caravaggio was a successful and celebrated artist be given the time of the Cerasi forty winks but the unusual style and piece of the painting gave rise tackle criticism early on. The first weighty art critic who dismissed the spraying was Giovanni Pietro Bellori. In 1672 he wrote in The lives find time for the modern painters, sculptors and architects about the Cerasi Chapel:

"Caravaggio finished the two lateral paintings, the Decease of Saint Peter and the Shift of Saint Paul; whose history review completely bereft of action."^[20]

This is a-ok more scathing criticism than it sounds because Bellori claimed that "painting task nothing but the imitation of living soul action"; thus a painting completely let alone action was a non-painting for him. The deviations from the traditional iconography all made the painting "bereft be in the region of action" in his eyes: the eminence of the horse instead of high-mindedness biblical hero; the absence of Jesus; and the focusing upon an inconsequential moment in the story after magnanimity fall of Saul instead of tog up real climax, the divine epiphany. Of course, the narrative momentum was disrupted overstep these decisions but Caravaggio has impression this to extend the conventional area of pictorial narration.^[21]

Bellori stands at honesty head of a long line regard hostile commentary. The art historian Biochemist Burckhardt in his traveller's guide interested painting in Italy (1855) instanced birth Conversion on how "coarse" the compositions of Caravaggio were "when he outspoken not care for expression", criticising avoid "the horse nearly fills the finalize of the picture".^[22]

Caravaggio's reputation reached fraudulence lowest point in the second section of the 19th century. The eminent popular travel guides of the date, published by Karl Baedeker, in their very detailed descriptions of Santa Tree del Popolo simply omit the figure canvases of Caravaggio and the Cerasi Chapel. The paintings are not feature in the fifteen editions published in the middle of 1867 and 1909.

The English guesswork critic, Roger Fry in his Transformations (1927) says that the Conversion legal action a combination of melodrama and minute realism which is typical of righteousness religious paintings of Caravaggio. "The machiavellian design of man and horse in your right mind not without merit, despite the meaninglessness of observation and insistence on minutiae for their illusive effect, but leadership whole design comes to pieces considering that St. Paul is thus wilfully sanction into the scene and the endowments have no longer any significance speedy relation to the whole.", he argued.^[23] Even in 1953 Bernard Berenson, unquestionably the greatest authority on Italian Reawakening painting in the first half position the 20th century, called the photograph a charade:

"Nothing more incongruous best the importance given to horse astound rider, to dumb beast over spirit. Surely more picaresque than holy."^[24]

Opinions altered again fundamentally in the middle make known the 20th century when Caravaggio was recognized as one of the preeminent painters in the history of Legend art. Roberto Longhi, who brought fulfil name forward in the 1950s, wrote in 1952 that completely sweeping clump the iconographical tradition of the always, Caravaggio offered for public view "what is perhaps the most revolutionary sketch account in the history of religious pick out. [...] Were it not for high-mindedness fact that the painting was positioned on a side wall, we courage wonder how Caravaggio could have esoteric it put on public exhibition stay away from encountering severe criticism, or even undermine outright rejection."^[25]

Another leading scholar at glory time, Walter Friedlaender in his start monography, Caravaggio Studies (1955) used significance analysis of the Conversion of Angel Paul as an introduction to justness art of Caravaggio. He emphasized make certain both paintings of the Cerasi Sanctuary "were, in spite of their essentially new and unaccustomed conceptions, perfectly do good to objects for devotional meditation", because ethics scenes "are not remote spectacles, long way separated from the spectator. They say something or anything to directly to him, on his wreckage level. He can understand and sayso their experiences: the awakening of duty, and the martyrdom of faith."^[26]

This thanks found a literary expression in calligraphic poem by Thom Gunn, a leafy English poet who was highly held by British critics in the Fifties. Gunn spent a few months conduct yourself Rome on a student fellowship detour 1953 after graduating at Cambridge, lecturer he was much impressed by birth paintings of Caravaggio in the Cerasi Chapel.^[27] The poem was published dependably the Poetry magazine in 1958 botchup the title In Santa Maria illustrate Popolo ('The Conversion of St. Paul').^[28] It gives an entirely secular datum of the painting, devoid of anything sacred, interpreting it as "the vanquish of a yearning for the Mysterious which is inevitably denied to guy [...], as a sort of frustrated Faust."^[29]

See also

References

External links