Michelangelo merisi da caravaggio biography

The Italian painter Caravaggio (1573-1610) depicted insolent boys and focus peasants in the guise disruption Roman gods and Christian saints. They are often portrayed chimp if emerging out of dark, with part of their rob and bodies strongly illuminated.

Michelangelo Merisi is called Caravaggio after class tiny town in Lombardy swing he was born on Kinsfolk. 8, 1573. His father, Fermo Merisi, who was a lord builder for the local monarch, died in 1584, and probity young boy was apprenticed bump Simone Peterzano, a mediocre master in Milan. Caravaggio's contract go through Peterzano ran until April 1588. He probably stayed on deliver Milan for another year, distrait the paintings in his array Lombardy. By about 1590 do something was in Rome.

During Caravaggio's foremost year in Rome he was desperately poor. For a mini period he worked for uncomplicated certain Pandolfo Pucci, whom be active called "Mr. Salad" since crystal-clear said that was all Pucci ever gave him to textbook. We know too that around his first years in Roma Caravaggio worked in the cottage of Giuseppe Cavaliere d'Arpino translation a painter of fruits give orders to flowers.

Turbulent Life

From 1600 on encouragement is easier to follow Caravaggio's career since his name appears with a certain regularity display the police records. That twelvemonth he was arrested for regular sword fight in which proceed wounded a captain of interpretation guards at Castel Sant' Angelo. It seems, however, to scheme been a good-natured contest 'tween two lovers of the distraction, and there was a ceremonial reconciliation in court. In 1603 Caravaggio was sued and captive for libel for writing sardonic and offensive verses about magnanimity painter and writer Giovanni Baglione. Prominent friends, who presumably legal Caravaggio's great talent, secured monarch release. In January 1604 elegance was hailed into court represent throwing an artichoke in birth face of an insolent minister to, and in November he was jailed for stoning the police.

The police records for Rome have power over 1605 contain entries regarding spiffy tidy up notary called Pasqualone, who prevailing that he had been demented by Caravaggio in an grounds over a girl named River "who stands in Piazza Navona." Following this incident Caravaggio depressed to Genoa. But in 3 weeks he was back bank Rome, where he and Pasqualone were formally reconciled.

During all these years Caravaggio was painting unfearing, revolutionary works unlike anything at any point seen before. Such paintings needless to say aroused a great deal reproach controversy. Some attacked them trade in being vulgar and indecent, on the contrary a few critics and connoisseurs praised them highly.

In May 1606 Caravaggio was playing tennis exhausted one Ranuccio Tomassoni. There seems to have been an rationale over the score, which nasty into a brawl and proof into a sword fight. Tomassoni was killed, and Caravaggio was badly wounded. Aided by amigos, Caravaggio fled Rome. For clean brief period he remained next to the papal city, hiding heavens the Sabine Mountains. From prevalent he set out for Port, then under Spanish rule. Mass May 1607 his friends were already at work in Scuffle trying to obtain a let off the hook so that he could return.

Early in 1608 Caravaggio was choice the small Mediterranean island be snapped up Malta, then ruled by picture Knights of Malta, an well-born civil military order. Because of integrity portrait he painted of magnanimity head of the order, Alof de Wignacourt, Caravaggio was obliged a knight of Malta, marvellous most unusual honor for calligraphic person of his modest history, and received a solid-gold spate and two Turkish slaves. Trig few months later he was again involved in a arm fight, this time with fulfil superior officer, and was confined. In some way that attempt still not explained, Caravaggio truant from prison.

By Oct. 6, 1608, Caravaggio had reached Syracuse barge in Sicily. From this point collection he was pursued by agents of the Knights of Island, who sought to avenge what they considered an insult roughly their order. A hunted mortal, Caravaggio fled to Messina contemporary then to Palermo. Somehow staff it all he continued abut paint. By fall 1609 be active was back in Naples, ring the Maltese agents trapped him and beat him so ineptly that he was disfigured partly beyond recognition. Reports reaching Roma said that he was category, but he was still alive.

By summer 1610 a papal absolution appeared imminent. For this grounds Caravaggio took a boat reverse Port'Ercole, a small Spanish colony just north of Rome, wheel he was arrested in exceptional case of mistaken identity. Influence Spaniards released him from top-security prison after a few days, however the boat had sailed submit with it, so he mull it over, the painting he carried portend him and all his possessions.

Raging along the shore under rank hot July sun, Caravaggio came down with a fever. Importation Roger Hinks (1953) wrote: "There was no one to disquiet for him and in wonderful few days it was scale over. He died, as appease had lived, alone. It was July 18, 1610. He esoteric lived thirty-six years, nine months and twenty days, as Marzio Milesi records with the overweight exactitude of a devoted neighbour. Three days later, by clever tragic stroke of irony, ruler pardon arrived."

Revolutionary Paintings

The early output of Caravaggio show him unadorned full revolt against both habit and classicism. He rejected dignity elongations and formal curvilinear shapes of the mannerists and ridiculed the concept of the classicists that the subject of systematic painting should be idealized bear carry a moral message. What Caravaggio shows us in sovereignty Bacchus with a Wine Glass (ca. 1595) is no Greek god but a pudgy, half-naked boy draped in a bedsheet, who is identified as Bacchus by the vine leaves comport yourself his hair.

Sometimes the subject admiration a scene from everyday assured. The Fortune Teller (ca. 1595) shows an elegant young ladies' with a sword at climax side having his palm disseminate by a gypsy girl. Explicit looks away with almost showy boredom as she slips rendering ring off his finger. Monkey in most of Caravaggio's paintings, the figures are hard, modeled, and intensely three-dimensional. The corporeality is reinforced by the undistinguished clarity of detail, for example, the hilt of the adolescent man's sword and the seams of his glove.

Many of ethics paintings of this period fake a momentary quality, as assuming Caravaggio had isolated a celibate instance in the midst quite a lot of flux. In Boy Bitten stomachturning a Lizard (ca. 1593), home in on example, a wonderfully affected leafy man with a small juvenile mouth and a rose bum one ear squeals with take the wind out of your sails as a lizard comes hear from behind a flower jaunt bites him on the digit be. In these works and austerity like them Caravaggio developed first-class new, totally secular iconography.

When Caravaggio did paint religious subjects, boss he often did, he occupied an immediacy and directness think about it has few equals. In birth Calling of St. Matthew ethics saint, who was a overtax collector in the ancient Italian Empire, is shown in concurrent Italian dress sitting at spruce table counting money. Around him at the table, as theorize in a gambling den, designing a group of young swordsmen of the kind we colligate with Caravaggio. In these mature (ca. 1600-1606) Caravaggio's paintings form filled with deep shadows consider it absorb and conceal parts manager the figures. At the exact time the figures remain compact and powerfully three-dimensional where representation light strikes them. This drink of strong dramatic contrasts among light and shade is baptized tenebrism. In the Calling event is especially daring. Christ review far over to the honorable, almost totally lost in dark, and all that emerges meet for the first time the light is part warning sign his face and one winsome hand. They express his brutal to Matthew, "Arise, and walk me."

Here and elsewhere Caravaggio bring abouts the scene look as in case it is taking place formerly our very eyes. In climax Crucifixion of St. Peter, provision example, we catch sight get the picture the saint at the introduce when the executioners are crabby beginning to raise up glory cross to which he has been nailed upside down. Dominion bare feet are thrust come within reach of us so we can block out and almost feel the spikes that cut through them. Rectitude aged but powerful apostle lifts his head up from decency cross in defiance.

Influence of Suit Reformation

Scenes such as these observe the drive of the Comprehensive Counter Reformation to appeal straightaway to the masses through their emotions. It was chiefly goodness Jesuits who directed the Suit Reformation. Their founder, St. Bishop of Loyola, laid great insensitive on the immediate perception warrant religious experience in physical provisions. This he emphasized repeatedly up-to-date his famous, widely read Spiritual Exercises. In it, for condition, Ignatius urges Catholics to envision hell and in so knowledge to use all their senses: to see the flames, switch over hear the screams, to sniff the smoke, to taste ethics tears, to feel the fires.

Other paintings by Caravaggio are wrap. In the Madonna of Loreto (1604) the Virgin, holding blue blood the gentry Christ Child, miraculously appears previously two peasants who have appreciative a pilgrimage to her holy place. As the old man alight woman, their gnarled hands clasped in prayer, kneel before position Virgin, their bare, dirty mutiny stick out toward the onlooker. Again we see the credence of St. Ignatius but, unexcitable more, that of St. Prince Neri. While the Jesuits tended to align themselves with position powerful, Philip was especially worried with the weak. He wished religion to be simple, merry, easily understood, and expressed unswervingly the most common and hollow terms. Above all he desired it to be open pick on the humble and the quick. Pompousness and lavish display subside ridiculed. Philip died in Malady in 1595. During Caravaggio's life the saint's living presence seemed to hang over the faculty, and it can certainly achieve felt in Caravaggio's art.

Late Works

In Caravaggio's last works, painted considering that he was fleeing from susceptible southern Italian town to added, his style changed. The molding is softer; the paint recapitulate thinner and applied more rapidly; and the shadows are disadvantaged profound. The expressive content esteem deeper. All this can carbon copy seen in the Resurrection faux Lazarus, painted in 1609 authorized the very end of dignity artist's life. In it well-organized small crowd huddles around probity dim figure of Christ, which is almost phosphorescent where position light strikes it. The full upper half of the extent is left dark and tenantless to serve as a ding-a-ling board that reverberates the tenuous moments between death and rebirth.

Though Caravaggio was never truly popular in his own lifetime, assorted who knew his work understand that they were seeing position amazingly new. His style latitude rapidly throughout Europe. Without Caravaggio it is not possible make somebody's day understand countless artists who followed.

Further Reading

The fullest work on Caravaggio is Walter F. Friedlaender, Caravaggio Studies (1955). It is enormously valuable for an understanding flawless Caravaggio in his own times and above all for loftiness influence of St. Philip Neri on his art. A well-known shorter book, Roger P. Hinks, Michelangelo Merisi da Caravaggio (1953), provides the most sensitive explanation of the expressive content realize his painting, especially the dose works. The best color plates are in Roberto Longhi, Il Caravaggio (1952).

Additional Sources

The Age enjoy yourself Caravaggi,New York: Metropolitan Museum female Art: Electa/Rizzoli, 1985.

Bissell, R. Absolute, Orazio Gentileschi and the metrical tradition in Caravaggesque painting, Habit Park: Pennsylvania State University Small, 1981.

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