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July 08, 2004
Art History Topic
The foreign artists who arrived in Rome towards the year 1600 found the Italians all excited about a young painter named Caravaggio, who had himself come to the city only a few years before from a town in northern Italy. A look at his work will make you realize how little his work has in common with the strained, other-worldly art of the Mannerists. Caravaggio had learned a good deal from the Venetian, High Renaissance style, but he refused to idealize his figures. His own outlook was naturalistic, which means that he wanted to show the world just as he saw it in everyday life...he painted soldiers such as one might have met in any Roman tavern, playing a crooked game of cards...At first people were shocked at this kind of subject - they claimed it was neither noble nor beautifu enough for a large painting. Yet they couldn't help admiring the way Caravaggio made the group come to life. Two things impressed them particularly: Caravaggio's new sense of timing, which let him catch the characters at exactly the right moment; and his dramatic use of light and dark. He was the first painter who spotlighted his pictures like a stage director, contrasting brilliant highlights with sharply outlined, deep shadows in order to make every face, every gesture as expressive as possible. Caravaggio could translate an important biblical story into the workaday reality of his own time aa nd yet fill it with the deepest religios feeling; it is his discovery of light as a force that raises a tavern scene to the level of a sacred event.
from "The Story of Painting", H.W. Janson and Dora Jane Hanson, Herry N. Abrams, Inc.
Posted by Pamela at July 8, 2004 10:29 PM