Michelangelo Merisi da Caravaggio was an Italian painter who was born in 1571.
Caravaggio trained as a painter in Milan under Simone Peterzano who had
himself trained under Titian.
In his twenties Caravaggio moved to Rome where there was a demand for paintings
to fill the many huge new churches and palaces being built at the time.
It was also a period when the Church was searching for a stylistic alternative
to Mannerism in religious art that was tasked to counter the threat of Protestantism.
Caravaggio's innovation was a radical naturalism that combined close
physical observation with a dramatic, even theatrical, use of chiaroscuro which came to be known as tenebrism. Chiaroscuro was practiced long before he came on the
scene, but it was Caravaggio who made the technique a dominant stylistic
element, darkening the shadows and transfixing the subject in a blinding shaft
of light.
He gained attention in the art scene of Rome in 1600 with the success of his
first public commissions, the Martyrdom of Saint
Matthew and Calling of Saint Matthew. Thereafter he never lacked
commissions or patrons, he handled his success poorly. He was jailed on several
occasions, vandalized his own apartment, and ultimately had a death sentence
pronounced against him by the Pope after killing a young man, possibly
unintentionally.
He was involved in a brawl in Malta in 1608, and another in Naples in 1609,
possibly a deliberate attempt on his life by unidentified enemies. This
encounter left him severely injured. A year later, at the age of 38, he died
under mysterious circumstances in Porto Ercole in
Tuscany, reportedly from a fever while on his way to Rome to receive a pardon.
Famous while he lived, Caravaggio was forgotten almost immediately after
his death, and it was only in the 20th century that his importance to the
development of Western art was rediscovered. Despite this, his influence on the
new Baroque style that eventually emerged from the ruins of Mannerism was
profound.
Some of his paintings are:
- The incredulity of St.
Thomas
- Calling of St. Matthew
- David with the Head of Goliath
- The Conversion of St. Paul
By: Celia Cuesta