Biographies

Michelangelo Merisi was born in Caravaggio near Milan in 1573 and died in 1610 near Porto Ercole. In between these two dates his life was marred by a series of scandals as he was a kind of anarchist at a time when society was mainly controlled by monarchies and the Church. Nevertheless he revolutionized painting and later had a strong influence over many artists.

Caravaggio was above all a rebel and as such tried to impose his own views regarding the representation of humans which he depicted in a miserable and dramatic way thus taking the risk of going against the aesthetic order prevailing during his lifetime.
Caravagism in the 17th Century was considered as barbarian as the its main exponent was above all interested in humble people and their sufferings placing himself as an upholder for equal rights at a time when human rights were far from being a topic to be discussed or even envisaged in high spheres.

Neo-classical ideals were thus opposed to Caravaggio and his followers and prevailed until at least the 1820's. Therefore, all painters who worked under his influence, notably Georges de la Tour, the Le Nain brothers in France, were forgotten during almost three centuries.

It was not until 1875 that the Le Nain brothers came out of oblivion while de la Tour was only rediscovered in 1925.
There was some kind of historical plot engineered by art historians and society against Caravaggio and his way of painting, which was considered as utterly subversive.

Caravaggio was born nine years after the great Michelangelo had died and started to work at 11 as an apprentice to Simone Peterzano, a former pupil of Tiziano whose style was reminiscent of that of Lorenzo Lotto. He then went to Rome between 1589 and 1593 but was not really successful during these years.
Given a home at the Hospital of the Consolation, he produced some works to eke out a living and was then approached by the Cavaliere (Knight) d'Arpino, a painter much praised in Catholic circles, to paint flowers and fruits for a start.

Caravaggio came also under the protection of cardinal del Monte and the Marquis of Giustianini despite the fact that he was much ill tempered.

It was at that time that he painted his famous Magdalena (now at the Palazzo Doria) and went on to include daily life in religious works taking great care in reproducing details. Caravaggio used to say that it cost him intense efforts to produce a good painting whatever the subject. This can be seen in the Rest during the Flight into Egypt, in his representation of Bacchus (at the Uffizzi in Florence), in Bacchus ill (Palazzo Borghese) or even in Medusa's head (Uffizzi) in which paintings he proved a great painter mastering luminous effects and dramatic postures.

Caravaggio was awarded his first public order in 1597 for several scenes of the life of Saint Matthew which were destined to the Contarelli chapel of the Saint-Louis-des-Français church in Rome.
His first version of Saint Matthew and the Angel was refused by the priests who argued that the apostle had not the stature of a saint in the manner he was seated with his legs crossed and with his feet exposed in a vulgar way.

Already his contemporaries confronted the artist to harsh criticisms while Marquis Gustianini finally acquired this version. It later found its way to the Berlin Museum but was unfortunately destroyed in 1945.
From then on, Caravaggio became increasingly rebellious as his works were ceaselessly criticized. Such antagonism led him to instill in his paintings more defiant attitudes and some incredible freedom in the treatment of light and shadows.

For example, in The Martyrdom of Saint Matthew the artist mainly concentrated his interest on two social symbols: the terrifying naked executioner and the child running away his mouth opened in terror and shouting his despair, a representation which paved the way two centuries later to Delacroix's painting, Freedom on the Barricades, and to Guernica, Picasso's masterpiece produced in 1937.

Around 1600 Caravaggio painted the Crucifixion of Saint Peter and the Conversion of Saint Paul for the Cerasi Chapel of the Santa Maria del Popolo church. But once again he was accused of disrespect for having shown the dirty feet of the executioner who was tying up Saint Peter to the cross.
In addition the Saint Paul painting was immediately rejected because Caravaggio's contemporaries could not admit that the backside of the horse belonging to the saint could be in the forefront while the latter was lying in the dust after being thrown to the ground and therefore not at his advantage on his way to Damascus. Caravaggio was apparently much affected by such criticisms and got involved in many night brawls in cabarets and inns. All the more he fought many duels, faced many trials and was used to beating up girls violently.

Despite being under the protection of some influent Roman nobles and personalities from the Church, Caravaggio was increasingly driven to become a nasty blusterer and was sent to jail many times though he still continued to paint works for several churches.

His painting of the death of the Virgin was refused by the Santa Maria Della Scala church because his patrons found that it was inconceivable to show the Virgin with a swollen body.

Pieter Paul Rubens managed to buy for the Duke of Mantua as beyond the representation of the corpse of the mother of Christ the Flemish master had been much impressed by the red lighting effect in this painting which heralded Georges de la Tour's works.

Caravaggio was sent twice to prison in 1605 and fled to Genoa after inflicting wounds to a notary with a sword. Also involved in a series of duels, he killed two men the following year in a gambling dispute in Rome and was himself wounded. Such incident led him to flee the city. Seeking refuge in Naples he produced a series of paintings which certainly made him the pioneer of a style much developed by Rembrandt and Velasquez a few years later.

Caravaggio went to Malta in 1608 and strangely enough became a knight of that order thus trying at last to belong to the society he abhorred. There he painted the portrait of Alof de Wignacourt, the Grandmaster of the Order (Now in the Louvre Museum) as well as several other paintings but he could not prevent himself from fighting another duel against a justice officer and was jailed once again. He escaped from prison on October 6th 1608 and landed in Sicily where he painted some masterpieces in which he exhaled his tormented spirit with increased violence.

After taking the risk of getting back to Naples he fell into an ambush and was left for dead by his aggressors. Despite being seriously wounded he managed to embark on a small boat sailing off for Rome where he hoped to be pardoned by the Pope. He however preferred to wait for such pardon during a stop in Porto Ercole, a Spanish enclave, but was arrested. Though he had been freed two days later, the boat had gone with all his belongings. Stricken by malaria, he died on July 18th 1610, 13 days before the Pope had finally granted him his pardon.

However, his influence soon reached many parts of Europe, notably in Rome where his followers were Manfredi, Orazio Borgianni and Orazio Gentileschi, in Naples where Caracciolo and Ribera were his main exponents, in Sicily where Pietro Novelli became his spiritual heir, in France where Georges de la Tour, Tournier, Valentin and Vignon resuscitated his style and in Spain where Velasquez became triumphant by using his style.

Caravaggio also had a major influence over still-life painters such as Lubin Baugin and the master of the Candlelight and probably over Vermeer and Rubens who much admired his works as well as Poussin who went on to adopt his style in the Martyrdom of Saint Erasmus in 1628 before he declared that Caravaggio had been "born to kill painting".

Last but not least, Caravaggio's influence over the Le Nain brothers was patent in their depiction of French humble peasants shown under crude light.

Caravaggio, who lived like a bully and as an errant who had strayed from the fold, had no pupil but managed to revolutionize painting by concentrating his attention to the people thus imposing a new vision on human life and its true meaning as well as a truly incredible interpretation of light and its effects which paved the way to another form of expression that was eventually developed without restraint by masters of the 19th Century.