Caravaggio
Michelangelo Merisi da Caravaggio, or simply Caravaggio, was a Italian Baroque master who lived from 1571 to 1610. His work is known for its brilliant realism, something that was much different from the idealized art style popular at the time. In addition, he painted his masterpieces directly from life without the usual preparatory sketches. However, Caravaggio lived a rather mean and rough life and displayed bizarre and erratic behavior.
Born in Milan, Caravaggio started his artistic training in 1584. By 1592, Caravaggio moved to Rome where he worked under Giuseppe Cesare d’Arpino, one of the most popular artists and art dealers at the time. His first patron was Cardinal Francesco Maria Del Monte, and after completing a commissioned artwork for the Cardinal, he found his work highly sought after. Caravaggio had a violent temper and after 1600, his name was recorded often in the police records for acts of libel and assault. In 1606, he was involved in a brawl and murder. He fled Rome after the pope issued a death warrant for him. Caravaggio fled to Naples for several months and soon became the most sought-after artist there.
After Naples, Caravaggio headed to Malta in 1607 where he was knighted. However, in 1608 he was soon involved in another quarrel, a brawl that resulted in him being arrested. He somehow escaped imprisonment and was forced to flee Malta as well. Caravaggio wandered through Syracuse and Palermo, continuing to create commissioned works. Most of his pieces that he created after initially fleeing Rome depicted subjects that were suffering, sad, or dying, and are likely related to his own dramatic life and dark state of mind. At the time, Caravaggio was overtly rude to other artists and was now sleeping in full clothes with weapons at his side, ready for a quick escape.
After a brief stint in Sicily, Caravaggio ended back in Naples in 1609. An attack on him left his face permanently disfigured. He sought to get a pardon from the Pope in Rome, but before he could return to Rome, he was arrested. He was later released, but had gotten sick while in prison, contracted a fever, and died in 1610 at only 38 years old.
Caravaggio’s works are known for their poignant use of the contrasts between light and dark (known as chiaroscuro), and display of highly emotional and physical states, both which were formative to Baroque art. Caravaggio developed the technique called tenebrism, in which chiaroscuro is depicted in such an intense way, that the lights and darks become the most prominent feature in the painting. Caravaggio’s subjects were realistic and helped turn European art tastes away from the idealized Renaissance style to the grittier, realism of the Baroque style.
He was mostly forgotten after his death but was rediscovered in the twentieth century when art historians found Caravaggio’s work as an extremely important link in the European tradition of art and expressed that masters such as Rembrandt and Édouard Manet wouldn’t have existed without him.
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