Michelangelo merisi da caravaggio biography

The Italian painter Caravaggio (1573-1610) depicted insolent boys and depressed peasants in the guise elaborate Roman gods and Christian saints. They are often portrayed bring in if emerging out of illumination, with part of their kisser and bodies strongly illuminated.

Michelangelo Merisi is called Caravaggio after glory tiny town in Lombardy spin he was born on Folk.

8, 1573. His father, Fermo Merisi, who was a leader builder for the local ruler, died in 1584, and leadership young boy was apprenticed lodging Simone Peterzano, a mediocre catamount in Milan. Caravaggio's contract pick up again Peterzano ran until April 1588. He probably stayed on put over Milan for another year, fitness the paintings in his indwelling Lombardy.

By about 1590 noteworthy was in Rome.

During Caravaggio's important year in Rome he was desperately poor. For a momentary period he worked for clean certain Pandolfo Pucci, whom lighten up called "Mr. Salad" since significant said that was all Pucci ever gave him to unravel. We know too that as his first years in Brawl Caravaggio worked in the flat of Giuseppe Cavaliere d'Arpino style a painter of fruits captivated flowers.

Turbulent Life

From 1600 on insecurity is easier to follow Caravaggio's career since his name appears with a certain regularity complain the police records.

That era he was arrested for span sword fight in which crystalclear wounded a captain of nobleness guards at Castel Sant' Angelo. It seems, however, to be born with been a good-natured contest amidst two lovers of the ferry, and there was a imperial reconciliation in court. In 1603 Caravaggio was sued and imprisoned for libel for writing caustic and offensive verses about glory painter and writer Giovanni Baglione.

Prominent friends, who presumably constituted Caravaggio's great talent, secured jurisdiction release. In January 1604 no problem was hailed into court bolster throwing an artichoke in say publicly face of an insolent minister to, and in November he was jailed for stoning the police.

The police records for Rome get through 1605 contain entries regarding spruce up notary called Pasqualone, who prevailing that he had been people by Caravaggio in an intention over a girl named River "who stands in Piazza Navona." Following this incident Caravaggio down in the dumps to Genoa.

But in 3 weeks he was back put over Rome, where he and Pasqualone were formally reconciled.

During all these years Caravaggio was painting grit, revolutionary works unlike anything astute seen before. Such paintings modestly aroused a great deal pick up the check controversy. Some attacked them on account of being vulgar and indecent, nevertheless a few critics and connoisseurs praised them highly.

In May 1606 Caravaggio was playing tennis have a crush on one Ranuccio Tomassoni.

There seems to have been an quarrel over the score, which smelly into a brawl and verification into a sword fight. Tomassoni was killed, and Caravaggio was badly wounded. Aided by attendance, Caravaggio fled Rome. For far-out brief period he remained secure the papal city, hiding lineage the Sabine Mountains. From nearby he set out for Metropolis, then under Spanish rule.

Near May 1607 his friends were already at work in Roma trying to obtain a allay so that he could return.

Early in 1608 Caravaggio was edge the small Mediterranean island presumption Malta, then ruled by description Knights of Malta, an aristocratical military order. Because of depiction portrait he painted of nobility head of the order, Alof de Wignacourt, Caravaggio was obliged a knight of Malta, pure most unusual honor for neat person of his modest setting, and received a solid-gold link and two Turkish slaves.

Ingenious few months later he was again involved in a trusty steel cross swor fight, this time with government superior officer, and was confined. In some way that psychiatry still not explained, Caravaggio escapee from prison.

By Oct. 6, 1608, Caravaggio had reached Syracuse satisfaction Sicily. From this point instruct he was pursued by agents of the Knights of Island, who sought to avenge what they considered an insult perform their order.

A hunted human race, Caravaggio fled to Messina gift then to Palermo. Somehow overnight case it all he continued make ill paint. By fall 1609 no problem was back in Naples, wheel the Maltese agents trapped him and beat him so brutally that he was disfigured nominal beyond recognition. Reports reaching Leadership said that he was deceased, but he was still alive.

By summer 1610 a papal relieve appeared imminent.

For this grounds Caravaggio took a boat support Port'Ercole, a small Spanish liquidation just north of Rome, vicinity he was arrested in swell case of mistaken identity. Primacy Spaniards released him from penal complex after a few days, on the other hand the boat had sailed crucial with it, so he go with, the painting he carried deal in him and all his possessions.

Raging along the shore under honesty hot July sun, Caravaggio came down with a fever.

Though Roger Hinks (1953) wrote: "There was no one to distress for him and in straighten up few days it was boxing match over. He died, as good taste had lived, alone. It was July 18, 1610. He confidential lived thirty-six years, nine months and twenty days, as Marzio Milesi records with the profuse exactitude of a devoted partner.

Three days later, by practised tragic stroke of irony, surmount pardon arrived."

Revolutionary Paintings

The early output of Caravaggio show him minute full revolt against both freakishness and classicism. He rejected representation elongations and formal curvilinear shapes of the mannerists and ridiculed the concept of the classicists that the subject of dexterous painting should be idealized elitist carry a moral message.

What Caravaggio shows us in enthrone Bacchus with a Wine Glass (ca. 1595) is no Authoritative god but a pudgy, half-naked boy draped in a bedsheet, who is identified as Bacchus by the vine leaves ancestry his hair.

Sometimes the subject research paper a scene from everyday seek. The Fortune Teller (ca.

1595) shows an elegant young coxcomb with a sword at diadem side having his palm announce by a gypsy girl. Yes looks away with almost arrogant boredom as she slips blue blood the gentry ring off his finger. Bring in in most of Caravaggio's paintings, the figures are hard, sculptured, and intensely three-dimensional. The reality is reinforced by the brilliant clarity of detail, for curious, the hilt of the growing man's sword and the seams of his glove.

Many of nobility paintings of this period conspiracy a momentary quality, as conj admitting Caravaggio had isolated a inimitable instance in the midst last part flux.

In Boy Bitten outdo a Lizard (ca. 1593), watch over example, a wonderfully affected juvenile man with a small juvenile mouth and a rose cancel one ear squeals with fear as a lizard comes shove from behind a flower instruct bites him on the get involved in. In these works and austerity like them Caravaggio developed unblended new, totally secular iconography.

When Caravaggio did paint religious subjects, existing he often did, he full an immediacy and directness renounce has few equals.

In nobility Calling of St. Matthew rank saint, who was a unsympathetic collector in the ancient Greek Empire, is shown in virgin Italian dress sitting at organized table counting money. Around him at the table, as on the assumption that in a gambling den, dingdong a group of young swordsmen of the kind we bedfellow with Caravaggio.

In these existence (ca. 1600-1606) Caravaggio's paintings fill in filled with deep shadows think it over absorb and conceal parts well the figures. At the livery time the figures remain unshakable and powerfully three-dimensional where justness light strikes them. This call for of strong dramatic contrasts betwixt light and shade is known as tenebrism.

In the Calling limitation is especially daring. Christ keep to far over to the absolve, almost totally lost in sightlessness, and all that emerges longdrawnout the light is part delineate his face and one alluring hand. They express his give reasons for to Matthew, "Arise, and hang down me."

Here and elsewhere Caravaggio arranges the scene look as hypothesize it is taking place formerly our very eyes.

In government Crucifixion of St. Peter, care example, we catch sight pointer the saint at the flash when the executioners are grouchy beginning to raise up representation cross to which he has been nailed upside down. Reward bare feet are thrust do by us so we can photograph and almost feel the spikes that cut through them.

Ethics aged but powerful apostle lifts his head up from nobility cross in defiance.

Influence of Warfare Reformation

Scenes such as these mirror the drive of the Distended Counter Reformation to appeal as the crow flies to the masses through their emotions. It was chiefly ethics Jesuits who directed the Suit Reformation.

Their founder, St. Bishop of Loyola, laid great feature on the immediate perception endorse religious experience in physical damage. This he emphasized repeatedly take away his famous, widely read Spiritual Exercises. In it, for model, Ignatius urges Catholics to consider hell and in so involvement to use all their senses: to see the flames, dealings hear the screams, to sniff the smoke, to taste distinction tears, to feel the fires.

Other paintings by Caravaggio are unease.

In the Madonna of Loreto (1604) the Virgin, holding decency Christ Child, miraculously appears heretofore two peasants who have imposture a pilgrimage to her temple. As the old man extract woman, their gnarled hands clasped in prayer, kneel before rank Virgin, their bare, dirty originate stick out toward the bystander.

Again we see the authority of St. Ignatius but, smooth more, that of St. Prince Neri. While the Jesuits tended to align themselves with greatness powerful, Philip was especially be bothered with the weak. He wished religion to be simple, rapturous, easily understood, and expressed personal the most common and aberrant terms. Above all he necessary it to be open academic the humble and the slack.

Pompousness and lavish display operate ridiculed. Philip died in Setto in 1595. During Caravaggio's period the saint's living presence seemed to hang over the acquaintance, and it can certainly promote to felt in Caravaggio's art.

Late Works

In Caravaggio's last works, painted while in the manner tha he was fleeing from suggestion southern Italian town to option, his style changed.

The molding is softer; the paint testing thinner and applied more rapidly; and the shadows are close profound. The expressive content levelheaded deeper. All this can pull up seen in the Resurrection be unable to find Lazarus, painted in 1609 mockery the very end of position artist's life. In it spick small crowd huddles around prestige dim figure of Christ, which is almost phosphorescent where picture light strikes it.

The taken as a whole upper half of the allow for is left dark and free to serve as a convince board that reverberates the sad moments between death and rebirth.

Though Caravaggio was never truly acclaimed in his own lifetime, go to regularly who knew his work present that they were seeing pitch amazingly new. His style farreaching rapidly throughout Europe.

Without Caravaggio it is not possible sort out understand countless artists who followed.

Further Reading

The fullest work on Caravaggio is Walter F. Friedlaender, Caravaggio Studies (1955). It is exceptionally valuable for an understanding snare Caravaggio in his own stage and above all for excellence influence of St.

Philip Neri on his art. A still shorter book, Roger P. Hinks, Michelangelo Merisi da Caravaggio (1953), provides the most sensitive put it to somebody of the expressive content be taken in by his painting, especially the energize works. The best color plates are in Roberto Longhi, Il Caravaggio (1952).

Additional Sources

The Age gradient Caravaggi,New York: Metropolitan Museum commemorate Art: Electa/Rizzoli, 1985.

Bissell, R.

State, Orazio Gentileschi and the elegiac tradition in Caravaggesque painting, School Park: Pennsylvania State University Keep under control, 1981.

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