CaravaggioMichelangelo Merisi (1571-1610), known as Caravaggio, after his home town in Lombardy, was arguably not only the finest painter of the late Renaissance and early Baroque periods, but one of the great artists of all time. He must also rank among the most revolutionary of those who, from time to time, have sought to overthrow established artistic orthodoxy through a return to, or strengthening of, naturalism. His two principal innovations - his use of chiaroscuro and his practice of painting directly from posed models- imbued his picturesque genre scenes of cardsharps and fortunetellers and his groundbreaking religious paintings, so redolent of the spirit of the Counter Reformation, with an intense, crisply etched presence. While his capricious character, aggressive behavior, and bohemian way of life have intrigued the modern imagination, fueling the notion of him as an embattled outsider who channeled the complexities of his own make-up into an assertively iconoclastic art. In this new edition of his authoritative text, which places Caravaggio's achievement squarely within the cultural and religious contexts of his time, John Gash has incorporated several recent documentary and pictorial discoveries. The book illustrates most of Caravaggio's surviving paintings, executed in Rome, Naples, Malta and Sicily at the turn of the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries, the majority of them in color. |
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altarpiece Annibale Carracci artist Baglione Barberini Basket of Fruit Bellori Canvas Capitolina Caravaggio Caravaggio's early Caravaggio's paintings Caravaggio's picture Cardinal del Monte Cavaliere d'Arpino Cerasi Chapel chiaroscuro Christ Church of San classical colour commissioned composition Contarelli Chapel Conversion of Saul copy Counter-Reformation death depicted detail document dramatic Emmaus Plate 33 fact figure Flagellation Florence Galleria Borghese Giovanni Battista Head of Goliath iconography John the Baptist Judith and Holofernes Knights late later light Longhi Madonna Malta Mancini maniera Mario Minniti Martyrdom of St Matthew Plate 26 Messina Milan Musée Naples Orazio Gentileschi original Ottavio Costa painter Palazzo patron picture's portrait pose possibly probably realistic referred religious Roman Rome saint Salome San Luigi Santa Maria Saul Plate 30 seems sixteenth century St Francis St Jerome St John St Matthew Plate St Peter style suggest Supper at Emmaus symbolic Uffizi Vincenzo Giustiniani Virgin Wignacourt youth