Chasing Caravaggio
July 1st, 2009
Dark. Passionate. Storyteller. Murderer. Artist. Anarchist.
Tempestuous. Scandalous. Dangerous. Genius.
The mystery of Caravaggio.
His models came from the streets and appeared from the shadows of his canvas. Caravaggio was one of the first artists to paint saints and people of any social level, as they really are, ordinary. But his realism was not just in the fact that he painted his subjects as ordinary – he also painted in a realist manner and didn’t shy away from painting dirty fingernails, dirty hair, rotten fruit, and bug eaten leaves.
Caravaggio was definitely a rebel for his time. During the late sixteenth century his work was an extraordinary way to think about painting, but even so, this realism was felt to be vulgar by the art collectors of his day. It was believed at the time that artists were given the gift of their talent to create things of beauty, and indeed, artists prior to Caravaggio were given to creating works of astounding beauty. But as Caravaggio’s work progressed his subject matter became more violent and dramatic. He created incredible scenes into which you as the viewer, participated. And that was disturbing.
Born 1571, Caravaggio, died 1610, Porto Ercole
Before Michelangelo Merisi di Caravaggio was orphaned as a child, his father worked as a caretaker for the Marquis di Caravaggio in Milan. So, although not rich, they were very comfortable. After his father’s death, Caravaggio was apprenticed to the painter Simone Peterzano in Milan, who had been a student of Titian. Because details of Caravaggios’s early life are sketchy at best, it is thought that some time around 1590, when he was around the age of nineteen, Caravaggio left Milan for Rome, the city where all artists of the day wanted to live and work.
Rome was the city of commissions and recognition. And in Rome, Caravaggioi lived in dire poverty while working as a painter’s assistant for various artists who may have been more affluent than he, but with much less talent. During this time he worked for a successful painter named Giuseppe Cersi, who happened to be the favorite painter of Pope Clement VIII. Caravaggio worked in this factory workshop painting still lifes of fruits and flowers.
Even so, during those first five unstable and tumultuous years in Rome, he managed to paint about forty canvases on his own. His first painting of this time period was Boy Peeling a Fruit. He also painted Boy with a Basket of Fruit, and the Young Sick Bacchus, which is interpreted as being a self-portrait after recovering from an illness. If you look closely at this painting, it does seem that the Bacchus is a bit green, quite the opposite of how a Bacchus is usually portrayed in art.
It is said that Caravaggio never drew, only painted. He used the people from his everyday experience as his models and he painted them down to their dirtiest detail.
In 1594, Caravaggio left Cesari’s studio. He became friends with the established painter Prospero Orsi who introduced him to the collectors that he knew. He also started to paint scenes from life, such as The Fortune Teller, which was his first to use more than one figure, and The Cardsharps. It was this latter painting that caught the attention of Cardinal Francesco del Monte, who became his patron. By gaining a patron, Caravaggio now made a move up in society by having room and board in the Cardinal’s estate.
Cardinal del Monte was a renowned collector and connosieur of art. During his time in the del Monte household, Caravaggio painted works such as The Lute Player, another, healthier (yet a bit drunk) Bacchus, and The Musicians. His work became religious, even though it did not take on the appearance of religion. Starting with works like the Penitent Magdalene.
Probably through his association with del Monte, Caravaggio received a commission in 1597 for three paintings for the Contarelli Chapel in the Church of San Luigi dei Francesi in Rome. At the age of twenty-four, Caravaggio had finally arrived. Two of the works that made up the commission, the Martyrdom of Saint Matthew and Calling of Saint Matthew, delivered in 1600, caused quite a stir in Rome when they were completed. Afterwards he began to receive commissions for his work from both the private and religious community, but from this point onward, he dedicated himself to painting works with religious and spiritual themes.
Moving from the circles that poverty runs in to running in the circles of nobles and cardinals did not stop Caravaggio’s passion for life. Prior to the Contarelli commission, not much is known of Caravaggio’s personal life. But after the commission was completed, Caravaggio’s turbulent life was kept in the records of the Roman police.
What started out as a series of hot-headed brawls, ended with a commitment of murder in 1606.
Caravaggio immediately became an outlaw. He left Rome for Naples, via a number of stops along the way. He first found refuge on the estate of Prince Marzio Colonna, where he painted Madonna of the Rosary (1606-1607). He had a number of commissions in Naples while he was there and then moved on to Malta where he was received as the famous painter from Rome. He was taken care of by the Knights of St. John, and painted a few portraits of the Grand Master, Alof de Wignacourt. But of course his passion won out and after being imprisoned for some criminal act, he escaped and went to Sicily.
Constantly feeling pursued, he never rested for any length of time. In 1608 he landed in Syracuse. In 1609 he went to Messina. Then on to Palermo and later in the year he returned to Naples, hoping for a pardon from the Pope in Rome. In 1610 he finally began his return to Rome, but in a matter of circumstance he was arrested when his boat made a stop in Palo and the boat went on without him, with all of his possessions, including his last three paintings which were mean to be a means to buy his freedom. He took off after the boat, on foot no less, and headed towards Porto Ercole, where he died three days after his arrival.
After his death, Caravaggio’s work fell into obscurity and went for the most part unnoticed until the mid-late twentieth century. For years he was barely touched upon as a subject in Art History courses, and now there are major exhibitions of his work in museums around the world.
