Birth Year : 1573
Death Year : 1609
Country : Italy
Michelangelo Merisi da Caravaggio, revolutionary naturalist painter,
was born in Caravaggio near Milan, the son of a mason. He showed his talent
early and at the age of sixteen, after a brief apprenticeship in Milan,
he was studying with d'Arpino in Rome.
During the period 1592-98 Caravaggio's work was precise in contour,
brightly colored, and sculpturesque in form, like the Mannerists, but with
an added social and moral consciousness. By 1600 when he had completed
his first public commission the St. Matthew paintings for the church of
San Luigi dei Francesi, he had established himself as an opponent of both
classicism and intellectual Mannerism.
Caravaggio chose his models from the common people and set them in ordinary
surroundings, yet managed to lose neither poetry nor deep spiritual feeling.
His use of chiaroscuro - the contrast of light and dark to create atmosphere,
drama, and emotion - was revolutionary. His light is unreal, comes from
outside the painting, and creates deep relief and dark shadow. The resulting
paintings are as exciting in their effect upon the senses as on the intellect.
Caravaggio's art, strangely enough, was not popular with ordinary people
who saw in it a lack of reverence. It was highly appreciated by artists
of his time and has become recognized through the centuries for its profoundly
religious nature as well as for the new techniques that had changed the
art of painting.
Though Caravaggio received many commissions for religious paintings
during his short life, he led a wild and bohemian existence. In 1606, after
killing a man in a fight, he fled to Naples. Unfortunately, he was soon
in trouble again, and so was forced to flee to Malta where, finally, after
a series of precipitous adventures, died of malaria at the age of thirty-six.
His influence, which was first seen in early seventeenth-century Italian
art, eventually spread to France, England, Spain and the Netherlands.
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Michelangelo
Merisi da Caravaggio
Bacchus
Michelangelo
Merisi da Caravaggio
Young
Bacchus
Michelangelo
Merisi da Caravaggio
Musician
Playing Lute
Michelangelo
Merisi da Caravaggio
Cardsharps,
The
Michelangelo
Merisi da Caravaggio
Narcissus
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