Caravaggio Italian Baroque Era Painter, ca.1571-1610
Italian painter. After an early career as a painter of portraits, still-life and genre scenes he became the most persuasive religious painter of his time. His bold, naturalistic style, which emphasized the common humanity of the apostles and martyrs, flattered the aspirations of the Counter-Reformation Church, while his vivid chiaroscuro enhanced both three-dimensionality and drama, as well as evoking the mystery of the faith. He followed a militantly realist agenda, rejecting both Mannerism and the classicizing naturalism of his main rival, Annibale Carracci. In the first 30 years of the 17th century his naturalistic ambitions and revolutionary artistic procedures attracted a large following from all over Europe.
Christ in the Garden 154 x 222 cm Formerly Kaiser-Friedrich-Museum, Berlin The painting was destroyed in the Second World War, it is known to us today through extant black and white photographs. This was a wonderful composition that caught the instant in which Christ awakes the sleeping apostles. The construction of the scene descends toward the lower right corner. St Peter in particular is shown in a classical position (which has been called Carracci-like), with the containment that characterizes this moment in the artist's career. Author: CARAVAGGIO Title: Christ in the Garden , 1551-1600 , Italian Form: painting , religious
Painting ID:: 62374
Christ_in_the_Garden 154 x 222 cm Formerly Kaiser-Friedrich-Museum, Berlin The painting was destroyed in the Second World War, it is known to us today through extant black and white photographs. This was a wonderful composition that caught the instant in which Christ awakes the sleeping apostles. The construction of the scene descends toward the lower right corner. St Peter in particular is shown in a classical position (which has been called Carracci-like), with the containment that characterizes this moment in the artist's career. Author: CARAVAGGIO Title: Christ in the Garden , 1551-1600 , Italian Form: painting , religious
St John the Baptist 94 x 131 cm Galleria Nazionale d'Arte Antica, Rome In around 1605 Caravaggio dealt with St. John the Baptist in two splendid compositions, one in the Kansas City Gallery, the other in the Galleria Nazionale di Arte Antica in Rome. The former is laid out vertically, the latter horizontally. Both lend themselves to a modernistic reading aimed at pointing out a certain air between contempt and arrogance. In effect what we are dealing with here are splendid exercises in modeling the body through the play of light and shadow. In the version now in Kansas City, the figure is set before a dense curtain of plants; in that in Rome, there is only the trunk of a cypress tree, on the left. Both are admirable feats of painting, and it is understandable that collectors competed with each other for the artist's works. Caravaggio in turn knew how to make apparently uninteresting religious themes into paintings desirable even for his aristocratic patrons.
Painting ID:: 62375
St_John_the_Baptist 94 x 131 cm Galleria Nazionale d'Arte Antica, Rome In around 1605 Caravaggio dealt with St. John the Baptist in two splendid compositions, one in the Kansas City Gallery, the other in the Galleria Nazionale di Arte Antica in Rome. The former is laid out vertically, the latter horizontally. Both lend themselves to a modernistic reading aimed at pointing out a certain air between contempt and arrogance. In effect what we are dealing with here are splendid exercises in modeling the body through the play of light and shadow. In the version now in Kansas City, the figure is set before a dense curtain of plants; in that in Rome, there is only the trunk of a cypress tree, on the left. Both are admirable feats of painting, and it is understandable that collectors competed with each other for the artist's works. Caravaggio in turn knew how to make apparently uninteresting religious themes into paintings desirable even for his aristocratic patrons.
St Francis c. 1606 Oil on canvas 125 x 93 cm Galleria Nazionale d'Arte Antica, Rome The founder of the Franciscan Order was the first person to experience the miracle of stigmatization of his own body. In other words, he was marked out by Christ's wounds. Here he is reduced to the ideal state of penance in the wilderness - a state equally valid for saints and pious people. Caravaggio shows no sign of reinterpreting the story unconventionally. His rather traditional approach may derive from the fact that the composition is probably a commission from the papal family. They owned the township known as Carpineto, from where an almost identical second version, stored at present in the Palazzo Venezia, Rome, originated. Stylistically, the painting is very closely related to the Brera Supper in Emmaus, which was probably painted in Latium
Painting ID:: 62376
St_Francis_c._1606_Oil_on_canvas 125 x 93 cm Galleria Nazionale d'Arte Antica, Rome The founder of the Franciscan Order was the first person to experience the miracle of stigmatization of his own body. In other words, he was marked out by Christ's wounds. Here he is reduced to the ideal state of penance in the wilderness - a state equally valid for saints and pious people. Caravaggio shows no sign of reinterpreting the story unconventionally. His rather traditional approach may derive from the fact that the composition is probably a commission from the papal family. They owned the township known as Carpineto, from where an almost identical second version, stored at present in the Palazzo Venezia, Rome, originated. Stylistically, the painting is very closely related to the Brera Supper in Emmaus, which was probably painted in Latium
Caravaggio Italian Baroque Era Painter, ca.1571-1610
Italian painter. After an early career as a painter of portraits, still-life and genre scenes he became the most persuasive religious painter of his time. His bold, naturalistic style, which emphasized the common humanity of the apostles and martyrs, flattered the aspirations of the Counter-Reformation Church, while his vivid chiaroscuro enhanced both three-dimensionality and drama, as well as evoking the mystery of the faith. He followed a militantly realist agenda, rejecting both Mannerism and the classicizing naturalism of his main rival, Annibale Carracci. In the first 30 years of the 17th century his naturalistic ambitions and revolutionary artistic procedures attracted a large following from all over Europe.