Darkness and Light:
Caravaggio and his World
Passion for life dominated the artistry of Michelangelo Merisi, better
known as Caravaggio.
Title: Crowning with Thorns c. 1602 / 04
Artist: Michelangelo Merisi da Caravaggio
Medium: Oil on Canvas
Dimensions: 127 x 166 cm
Permanent Collection: Kunsthistorisches Museum,
Gemäldegalerie, Vienna. Inv no. 307
Courtesy: The Art Gallery of New South Wales, Sydney, Australia
Darkness and Light: Caravaggio and his World
brings together nine works of the master complimented with over fifty works by his
many contemporaries including Manfredi, Saraceni, Orazio and Artemisia
Gentileschi. The exhibition is on display at the Art Gallery of New South
Wales until February 22, 2004.
The World of Caravaggio
Light was often used within the works and like many of his contemporaries he
was heavily criticized for his new dramatic forms that did not follow
conventions of his era. "Never before had an
artist presented religious drama as contemporary life... Nor had any
earlier painter dared to break so dramatically with long established
studio traditions painting his figures from nature, directly onto the
canvas, with complex effects of studio lights. It was the figures having
been painted from life that most fascinated Caravaggio's
contemporaries."1
The Light of Caravaggio
The Art Gallery of New South Wales, Interior
Sydney, Australia
Photographer: Jenni Carter
Courtesy: The Art Gallery of New South Wales
Caravaggio heavily influenced Baroque using emotion
to convey feelings rather than the straight clean lines that were de
rigueur at the time.
Title: Boy bitten by a lizard c. 1595/6 - 1600
Artist: Michelangelo Merisi da Caravaggio
Medium: Oil on Canvas
Dimensions: 66 x 49.5
Permanent Collection: The National Gallery of London, England.
Courtesy: The Art Gallery of New South Wales, Sydney, Australia
Boy bitten by a lizard is a marvelous example of Carvaggio's use of
emotion. The face of the child delivering both shock and pain as the fangs
sank deep into his finger. "The painful disappointments of amorous
love are the theme of the Boy bitten by a lizard... A lizard biting the
boy's middle finger, a digit with the same agenda then as now, is a good
way to suggest the nasty surprises that lie in wait for the ingenuous
lover."2
Caravaggio had an incredible fresh talent. "Few artists have so powerfully and truthfully sought, grasped and
expressed the drama of the everyday. The over naturalism and pervasive
amorality of his images, sacred or secular, speak to us now, centuries
after their creation with relentless effect and conviction. His
observations of the language of the human instinct and body -- the casual
glance, the indifferent shrug, the weary slump, the accusing point of the
finger, the suspicious eye -- are as true and as familiar to us to day as
they were to Caravaggio and his coteries four centuries ago."3
The Art Gallery of New South Wales, Exterior
Sydney, Australia
Photographer: Christopher Snee
Courtesy: The Art Gallery of New South Wales
Among the most striking characteristic of his artwork is light. "Caravaggio rapidly came to use light as an instrument of revelation.
His manipulation of it allowed him to emphasize those figures or parts of
figures which he held to be essential. He would allow the subsidiary
elements which he regarded as irrelevant to a proper appreciation of the
composition to remain in darkness. The function of the light was therefore
to allow the subject to be recognized in its true aspect. However, this
truth is established via sensory perception and as such it often presents
a deceptive reality or, rather, the illusion of truth. Caravaggio wanted
to use the illusory power of painting to provoke a sensation of the
concrete presence of natural reality. This was the goal that he
pursued."4
The Darkness of Caravaggio
The artist was often arrested and spent some time in prison because of his
notorious temper and fights but still managed to produce his magnificent
masterpieces when he wasn't dealing with the consequences of his actions. The artist
had to flee Rome after a drunken brawl in which he killed a man. It explains his numerous works in Naples, Malta and
Sicily, as he avoided the various authorities that were looking for him to
answer for his deed.
"Caravaggio was a painter of temperament, an artist driven by his own
needs and ego rather than by the demands of ambition, although recognition
was never spurned."5
Caravaggio spent much of his last years avoiding arrest on murder charges.
While in Naples, in 1609, he was attacked and left for dead. He did
recover, was briefly arrested and released.
His one hope to end his life on the run was Papal clemency which he would
receive, ironically, three days after his death in Port 'Ercole.
After the exhibition closes at the Art Gallery of New South Wales it will
journey to the National Gallery of Victoria in Melbourne opening in March
2004.
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Footnotes
1 Caravaggio: A Life, Helen Langdon, Farrar Straus
& Giroux
2 Caravaggio: A Brief Life, Essay by John T. Spike, page 2,
Courtesy of The Art Gallery of New South Wales.
3 Why Caravaggio?, Essay by Edmund Capon, page 1, Courtesy of
The Art Gallery of New South Wales.
4 Caravaggio: Darkness and Light, Essay by Sergio Benedetti,
page 6, Courtesy of The Art Gallery of New South Wales.
5 Why Caravaggio?, Essay by Edmund Capon,
page 1, Courtesy of The Art Gallery of New South Wales
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