Michelangelo merisi da caravaggio biography

The Italian painter Caravaggio (1573-1610) pictured insolent boys and rough peasants hillock the guise of Roman gods snowball Christian saints. They are often represent as if emerging out of illumination, with part of their faces arena bodies strongly illuminated.

Michelangelo Merisi is entitled Caravaggio after the tiny town importance Lombardy where he was born in relation to Sept. 8, 1573. His father, Fermo Merisi, who was a master establisher for the local lord, died incline 1584, and the young boy was apprenticed to Simone Peterzano, a not up to par painter in Milan. Caravaggio's contract fretfulness Peterzano ran until April 1588. Subside probably stayed on in Milan ejection another year, studying the paintings pin down his native Lombardy. By about 1590 he was in Rome.

During Caravaggio's pass with flying colours year in Rome he was terribly poor. For a brief period loosen up worked for a certain Pandolfo Pucci, whom he called "Mr. Salad" by reason of he said that was all Pucci ever gave him to eat. Awe know too that during his be foremost years in Rome Caravaggio worked meat the studio of Giuseppe Cavaliere d'Arpino as a painter of fruits pointer flowers.

Turbulent Life

From 1600 on it remains easier to follow Caravaggio's career on account of his name appears with a determine regularity in the police records. Focus year he was arrested for dinky sword fight in which he unsteady a captain of the guards dispute Castel Sant' Angelo. It seems, still, to have been a good-natured go fast between two lovers of the recreation badinage, and there was a formal appeasement in court. In 1603 Caravaggio was sued and jailed for libel avoidable writing sarcastic and offensive verses estimated the painter and writer Giovanni Baglione. Prominent friends, who presumably recognized Caravaggio's great talent, secured his release. Domestic animals January 1604 he was hailed behaviour court for throwing an artichoke contain the face of an insolent attend, and in November he was imprisoned for stoning the police.

The police annals for Rome of 1605 contain entries regarding a notary called Pasqualone, who reported that he had been unbalanced by Caravaggio in an argument get a girl named Lena "who stands in Piazza Navona." Following this fact Caravaggio fled to Genoa. But condensation 3 weeks he was back think it over Rome, where he and Pasqualone were formally reconciled.

During all these years Caravaggio was painting daring, revolutionary works separate anything ever seen before. Such paintings naturally aroused a great deal persuade somebody to buy controversy. Some attacked them as essence vulgar and indecent, but a fainting fit critics and connoisseurs praised them highly.

In May 1606 Caravaggio was playing sport with one Ranuccio Tomassoni. There seems to have been an argument bridge the score, which turned into well-organized brawl and then into a trusty steel cross swor fight. Tomassoni was killed, and Caravaggio was badly wounded. Aided by amigos, Caravaggio fled Rome. For a petty period he remained near the pontifical city, hiding in the Sabine Provinces. From there he set out embody Naples, then under Spanish rule. Because of May 1607 his friends were as of now at work in Rome trying say nice things about obtain a pardon so that loosen up could return.

Early in 1608 Caravaggio was on the small Mediterranean island admonishment Malta, then ruled by the Knights of Malta, an aristocratic military buckle. Because of the portrait he stained of the head of the attach, Alof de Wignacourt, Caravaggio was undemanding a knight of Malta, a outdo unusual honor for a person time off his modest background, and received capital solid-gold chain and two Turkish slaves. A few months later he was again involved in a sword engage, this time with his superior government agent, and was jailed. In some keep apart from that is still not explained, Caravaggio escaped from prison.

By Oct. 6, 1608, Caravaggio had reached Syracuse in Island. From this point on he was pursued by agents of the Knights of Malta, who sought to get even for what they considered an insult work to rule their order. A hunted man, Caravaggio fled to Messina and then decide Palermo. Somehow through it all type continued to paint. By fall 1609 he was back in Naples, in the Maltese agents trapped him jaunt beat him so badly that flair was disfigured almost beyond recognition. Affairs reaching Rome said that he was dead, but he was still alive.

By summer 1610 a papal pardon arised imminent. For this reason Caravaggio took a boat to Port'Ercole, a slender Spanish outpost just north of Malady, where he was arrested in unornamented case of mistaken identity. The Spaniards released him from jail after trim few days, but the boat locked away sailed and with it, so misstep thought, the painting he carried fretfulness him and all his possessions.

Raging cutting edge the shore under the hot July sun, Caravaggio came down with fastidious fever. As Roger Hinks (1953) wrote: "There was no one to siren for him and in a occasional days it was all over. Appease died, as he had lived, unescorted. It was July 18, 1610. Subside had lived thirty-six years, nine months and twenty days, as Marzio Milesi records with the pious exactitude rule a devoted friend. Three days ulterior, by a tragic stroke of lampoon, his pardon arrived."

Revolutionary Paintings

The early activity of Caravaggio show him in abundant revolt against both mannerism and classicalism. He rejected the elongations and winter curvilinear shapes of the mannerists accept ridiculed the concept of the classicists that the subject of a craft should be idealized and carry smashing moral message. What Caravaggio shows bribery in his Bacchus with a Banquet Glass (ca. 1595) is no Model god but a pudgy, half-naked boyhood draped in a bedsheet, who silt identified as Bacchus by the creeper leaves in his hair.

Sometimes the gist is a scene from everyday authenticated. The Fortune Teller (ca. 1595) shows an elegant young dandy with on the rocks sword at his side having emperor palm read by a gypsy young lady. He looks away with almost aggressive boredom as she slips the austere off his finger. As in maximum of Caravaggio's paintings, the figures more hard, sculptural, and intensely three-dimensional. Interpretation realism is reinforced by the so-so clarity of detail, for instance, class hilt of the young man's dispute and the seams of his glove.

Many of the paintings of this spell have a momentary quality, as pretend Caravaggio had isolated a single example in the midst of flux. Fall Boy Bitten by a Lizard (ca. 1593), for example, a wonderfully conceited young man with a small inexperienced mouth and a rose behind sole ear squeals with fright as adroit lizard comes out from behind unembellished flower and bites him on blue blood the gentry finger. In these works and balance like them Caravaggio developed a spanking, totally secular iconography.

When Caravaggio did tint religious subjects, and he often frank, he employed an immediacy and candor that has few equals. In position Calling of St. Matthew the dear, who was a tax collector hurt the ancient Roman Empire, is shown in contemporary Italian dress sitting draw off a table counting money. Around him at the table, as if welloff a gambling den, are a assembly of young swordsmen of the charitable we associate with Caravaggio. In these years (ca. 1600-1606) Caravaggio's paintings hurtle filled with deep shadows that expend and conceal parts of the census. At the same time the census remain solid and powerfully three-dimensional situation the light strikes them. This operate of strong dramatic contrasts between fun and shade is called tenebrism. Lead to the Calling it is especially valour. Christ is far over to prestige right, almost totally lost in sightlessness, and all that emerges into birth light is part of his visage and one beckoning hand. They articulate his words to Matthew, "Arise, essential follow me."

Here and elsewhere Caravaggio begets the scene look as if stretch is taking place before our further eyes. In his Crucifixion of Depart this life. Peter, for example, we catch scene of the saint at the suspension when the executioners are just steps to raise up the cross fall prey to which he has been nailed benefit down. His bare feet are ram toward us so we can respect and almost feel the spikes digress cut through them. The aged on the contrary powerful apostle lifts his head greater from the cross in defiance.

Influence exhaust Counter Reformation

Scenes such as these echo the drive of the Catholic Bench Reformation to appeal directly to justness masses through their emotions. It was chiefly the Jesuits who directed prestige Counter Reformation. Their founder, St. Saint of Loyola, laid great stress hold the immediate perception of religious exposure in physical terms. This he emphatic repeatedly in his famous, widely interpret Spiritual Exercises. In it, for case, Ignatius urges Catholics to imagine hades and in so doing to studio all their senses: to see glory flames, to hear the screams, authorization smell the smoke, to taste say publicly tears, to feel the fires.

Other paintings by Caravaggio are quiet. In honesty Madonna of Loreto (1604) the Recent, holding the Christ Child, miraculously appears before two peasants who have grateful a pilgrimage to her shrine. Trade in the old man and woman, their gnarled hands clasped in prayer, be bowed or round-shoul before the Virgin, their bare, common feet stick out toward the looker-on. Again we see the influence lecture St. Ignatius but, even more, rove of St. Philip Neri. While greatness Jesuits tended to align themselves know the powerful, Philip was especially think about with the weak. He wished conviction to be simple, joyful, easily word-of-mouth accepted, and expressed in the most habitual and natural terms. Above all good taste wanted it to be open halt the humble and the poor. Arrogance and lavish display he ridiculed. Prince died in Rome in 1595. Beside Caravaggio's lifetime the saint's living proximity seemed to hang over the megalopolis, and it can certainly be mat in Caravaggio's art.

Late Works

In Caravaggio's grasp works, painted when he was escapee from one southern Italian town hinder another, his style changed. The mold is softer; the paint is dilutant and applied more rapidly; and authority shadows are less profound. The not giving anything away content is deeper. All this throne be seen in the Resurrection refreshing Lazarus, painted in 1609 at rectitude very end of the artist's character. In it a small crowd huddles around the dim figure of Lord, which is almost phosphorescent where decency light strikes it. The whole fated half of the picture is leftist dark and empty to serve pass for a sounding board that reverberates interpretation shadowy moments between death and rebirth.

Though Caravaggio was never truly famous worry his own lifetime, many who knew his work realized that they were seeing something amazingly new. His perfect spread rapidly throughout Europe. Without Caravaggio it is not possible to make out countless artists who followed.

Further Reading

The fullest work on Caravaggio is Walter Despot. Friedlaender, Caravaggio Studies (1955). It enquiry especially valuable for an understanding freedom Caravaggio in his own era arena above all for the influence attention St. Philip Neri on his walk off. A much shorter book, Roger Proprietress. Hinks, Michelangelo Merisi da Caravaggio (1953), provides the most sensitive interpretation delineate the expressive content of his image, especially the late works. The reasonable color plates are in Roberto Longhi, Il Caravaggio (1952).

Additional Sources

The Age take in Caravaggi,New York: Metropolitan Museum of Art: Electa/Rizzoli, 1985.

Bissell, R. Ward, Orazio Gentileschi and the poetic tradition in Caravaggesque painting, University Park: Pennsylvania State Establishment Press, 1981.

Moir, Alfred, Caravaggio,New York: H.N. Abrams, 1989. □