Michelangelo Da Caravaggio

Overview: It was not until the middle of the 20th century that Caravaggio (1571-1610), an Italian painter long considered controversial, was rediscovered. An advocate of Realism, this artist of the Counter-Reformation challenged the establishment and returned a sense of humanity to images of the saints. The sensuality he gave them went beyond veneration to create an ambiguous eroticism, which incurred the wrath of the Church. Paradoxical and violent, this painter of shadows illustrated with solemnity his debauched lifestyle and dissolute morals. With his invention of chiaroscuro, he made his blood-soaked impression on the history of art.

It took a mid-twentieth century art show in Milan to rediscover this Italian artist, emblematic of the Baroque period, who lived during the second half of the 16th and first half of the 17th centuries.Michelangelo Merisi was born to a family of modest means in 1571 near Milan. At the age of thirteen, he became an apprentice of the painter Simone Peterzano, who taught him artistic techniques and the use of colours. But he was atracted by Rome, with its fast pace of life and its loose morals. In 1597, he became the protg to a noble cardinal who assisted him in securing important orders, such as The Martyrdom of St. Matthew, but he turned many of the offers down because of the vulgarity of the subject. Rejecting mannerism in favour of realism, this artist of the Counter- Reformation restored to the saints their humanity. Paradoxically, this mystical painter gives the saints a sensuality which goes beyond veneration and opens the door to an ambiguous eroticism.Caravaggio also experienced the taste of dishonour and prison. After the murder of Tomasi, he was condemned to exile. He died on the 18th of July 1610 as he had lived unexpectedly, like a character in a novel, far away from his beloved Rome, on the eve of his pardon by Pope Paul V.His work remains tremendous both his themes and his techniques became an inspiration for Rubens, Velzquez, and Rembrandt, inspiring especially the technique of chiaroscuro, of which he was one of the precursors.With the help of numerous colour reproductions, this book retraces the life of Caravaggio and analyses his work while illustrating the scope of his influence on the greatest artists.

After staying in Milan for his apprenticeship, Michelangelo da Caravaggio arrived in Rome in 1592. There he started to paint with both realism and psychological analysis of the sitters. Caravaggio was as temperamental in his painting as in his wild life. As he also responded to prestigious Church commissions, his dramatic style and his realism were seen as unacceptable. Chiaroscuro had existed well before he came on the scene, but it was Caravaggio who made the technique definitive, darkening the shadows and transfixing the subject in a blinding shaft of light. His influence was immense, firstly through those who were more or less directly his disciples. Famous during his lifetime, Caravaggio had a great influence upon Baroque art. The Genoese and Neapolitan Schools derived lessons from him, and the great movement of Spanish painting in the seventeenth century was connected with these schools. In the following generations the best endowed painters oscillated between the lessons of Caravaggio and the Carracci. It was not until the middle of the 20th century that Caravaggio (1571-1610), an Italian painter long considered controversial, was rediscovered. An advocate of Realism, this artist of the Counter-Reformation challenged the establishment and returned a sense of humanity to images of the saints. The sensuality he gave them went beyond veneration to create an ambiguous eroticism, which incurred the wrath of the Church. Paradoxical and violent, this painter of shadows illustrated with solemnity his debauched lifestyle and dissolute morals. With his invention of chiaroscuro, he made his bloodsoaked impression on the history of art. In combining the different approaches of Flix Witting (Professor of Art History) and M. L.Patrizi (Doctor of Psychology), this text sheds new light on the work of this painter, who could not be better served than by these great specialists. It took a mid-twentieth century art show in Milan to rediscover this Italian artist, emblematic of the Baroque period, who lived during the second half of the 16th and first half of the 17th centuries. Michelangelo Merisi was born to a family of modest means in 1571 near Milan. At the age of thirteen, he became an apprentice of the painter Simone Peterzano, who taught him artistic techniques and the use of colours. But he was attracted by Rome, with its fast pace of life and its loose morals. In 1597, he became the protégé to a noble cardinal who assisted him in securing important orders, such With the help of numerous color reproductions, this book retraces the life of Caravaggio--the 16th-century Italian artist--and analyzes his work while illustrating the scope of his influence on the greatest artists Annotation A reference for lovers of Caravaggio and his life's masterpieces, this title traces the evolution of the artist's style, giving a wide scope of his work and the time in which he lived Compilation of selections from works about Caravaggio by Félix Witting, M.L. Patrizi, Giovanni Pietro Bellori and Mancini translated into English.