Wednesday, April 20, 2022

Michelangelo Merisi da Caravaggio (1571-1610)

Caravaggio
Bacchus
(also called Sick Bacchus
or Self Portrait as Bacchus)
ca. 1593
oil on canvas
Galleria Borghese, Rome

Caravaggio
Sleeping Cupid
ca. 1600
oil on canvas
Palazzo Pitti, Florence

Caravaggio
Narcissus
ca. 1598
oil on canvas
Palazzo Barberini, Rome

Caravaggio
St John the Baptist
ca. 1610
oil on canvas
Galleria Borghese, Rome

Caravaggio
St John the Baptist
1602
oil on canvas
Pinacoteca Capitolina, Rome

Caravaggio
St John the Baptist
ca. 1604
oil on canvas
Palazzo Corsini, Rome

Caravaggio
St Jerome in his Study
ca. 1606
oil on canvas
Galleria Borghese, Rome

Caravaggio
St Matthew and the Angel
ca. 1602
oil on canvas
Contarelli Chapel
Chiesa di San Luigi dei Francesi, Rome

Caravaggio
Entombment of Christ
1603-1604
oil on canvas
Pinacoteca Vaticana, Rome

Caravaggio
Conversion of St Paul
ca. 1600-1601
oil on canvas
Cerasi Chapel
Basilica di Santa Maria del Popolo, Rome

Caravaggio
Conversion of St Paul
ca. 1600
oil on canvas
Odescalchi Balbi Collection, Rome

Caravaggio
David with the Head of Goliath
(self portrait as Goliath)
1610
oil on canvas
Galleria Borghese, Rome

Caravaggio
Martyrdom of St Matthew
ca. 1599-1600
oil on canvas
Contarelli Chapel
Chiesa di San Luigi dei Francesi, Rome

Caravaggio
Madonna dei Palafrenieri
1606
oil on canvas
Galleria Borghese, Rome

Caravaggio
The Fortune Teller
ca. 1594-95
oil on canvas
Pinacoteca Capitolina, Rome

"Caravaggio is the prototype of the turbulent Bohemian artist, his explosive personality helping to obscure the traditional elements of his painting.  It is now obvious, however, that from c. 1599 he drew on High Renaissance and even antique models, and that his decorum-defying naturalism derived from Flemish art mediated through Veneto-Lombard painting of the early 16th century (Lotto, Moretto, Romanino, Savoldo).  . . .  Whether from inadequate training or aesthetic preference, Caravaggio confined himself to painting in oils, in a narrow range of earth colours, even in his large-scale Roman chapel decorations.  . . .  Caravaggio's Ĺ“uvre, from the suave homoerotic paintings of the 1580s through the tragic visions of 1606-10, is distinguished by its directness of address to the viewer, accomplished in his youth through mastery of close-range illusionism, later through selective social realism and the expressive manipulation of light.  These qualities may compensate for his shortcomings in the composition of large-scale narrative, but do not disguise them."

– from the Yale Dictionary of Art and Artists by Erika Langmuir and Norbert Lynton (2000)