"Caravaggio employed close physical observation with a dramatic use of chiaroscuro that came to be known as tenebrism. He made the technique a dominant stylistic element, transfixing subjects in bright shafts of light and darkening shadows. Caravaggio vividly expressed crucial moments and scenes, often featuring violent struggles, torture, and death. He worked rapidly, with live models, preferring to forgo drawings and work directly onto the canvas. His inspiring effect on the new Baroque style that emerged from Mannerism was profound. His influence can be seen directly or indirectly in the work of Peter Paul Rubens, Jusepe de Ribera, Gian Lorenzo Bernini, and Rembrandt. Artists heavily under his influence were called the "Caravaggisti" (or "Caravagesques"), as well as tenebrists or tenebrosi ("shadowists")." "Caravaggio displayed bizarre behavior from very early in his career. Mancini describes him as 'extremely crazy', a letter of Del Monte notes his strangeness, and Minniti's 1724 biographer says that Mario left Caravaggio because of his behavior. The strangeness seems to have increased after Malta. Susinno's early-18th-century Le vite de' pittori Messinesi ("Lives of the Painters of Messina") provides several colourful anecdotes of Caravaggio's erratic behavior in Sicily, and these are reproduced in modern full-length biographies such as Langdon and Robb."
- Two separate quotes from Caravaggio's Wiki entries (linked to in the image caption above) from which all images in this post have been sourced. Inset right is Caravaggio's Narcissus at the Source, 1599... another "golden" boy, as we shall see... which begs the question: Did Caravaggio actually "forgo drawings and work directly into the canvas" or was that merely another element of the mythology which surrounded the tragic life of this artist?
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By most accounts, "tragedy" is not the operative word in Michelangelo da Caravaggio's life story. He was a swaggering, brawling, hot-tempered man, but he also happened to be the most celebrated artist of his time. His violent nature was, if not celebrated, accepted. After all, isn't knocking a few heads around - and other forms of assault - a manly thing to do? That his police record was as long as his right arm (or longer) and included several homicides shouldn't deter us; we love our dark heroes.
Inset left is a pastel portrait of Caravaggio (1621, Ottavio Leoni).
He was said to have created art in much the same way as he lived: spontaneously... as if he just splashed his paint on the canvas with nary a plan - nor a preliminary drawing - in mind; once again, a very manly, masterful approach. And, yet, he managed to create a number of exceptionally vibrant, cohesive images that dazzled the public of his time and continue to impress us to this day; by all accounts, his should have been a brilliant success story.
The downside is this: he spent the last years of his short life as a paranoid refugee... running scared, as a result of the murder and mayhem he had created previously. Karma caught up with him in the form of family members of one of his victims - I might add that his crime involved a "botched" castration (but, try not to dwell on this) - and, due to an infected wound he died at age 38.*
As if that wasn't bad enough, his sworn-enemy, worse critic and arch-rival - fellow artist, Giovanni Baglione - somehow - and, most likely, by nefarious means - became the author of Caravaggio's first official biography(!). Of this Wiki tells us: "Baglione, his first biographer, played a considerable part in creating the legend of Caravaggio's unstable and violent character, as well as his inability to draw."
So, keep this in mind (and make no mistake) when reading about Caravaggio: in some insidious way, Baglione's poison ink still flows...
...a matter I will attempt to circumvent.
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* Other possible causes of death include lead poisoning and syphilis... but, then again, well, there was that Knight of Malta...! (See this Smithsonian article.)
Love Conquers All
I may as well tell you now that since the time I first posted Amor Vincit Omnia (Love Conquers All), and, presently, as I write these words, I made an important discovery. And, it is due to this discovery that I can state, without any hesitation, that the spiral in this painting was no accident.* That is, Caravaggio was well-informed of the pentagonal Divina Proportione and deliberately used its spiral to design this painting. Moreover, amongst his contemporaries, he wasn't the only painter to do so.. nor was he the only painter to use the spiral in this context. That being said, of all the golden spirals I have found, this one (inset right) is quite possibly my favorite. Really, what's not to love? Caravaggio almost challenges us to contemplate the mechanics of his design.
Once again, we merely have to look at Cupid's physically impossible posture; it is only through the spiral that his stance is made clear. He has become the golden triangle and its spiral... poised precariously on an area no larger than a dime. And, Caravaggio has neglected no detail: even the fret-board of the lute in the background aligns with Cupid's triangle.
As might be expected, much has been made of the eroticism in this image, but, with this, I can't quite agree. Judging by Cupid's expression - as he bends his head down and grins at us through his triangle - Caravaggio may have been celebrating the joy and playfulness love brings to human lives... and/or possibly his own love for the boy who was his model for Cupid - the diminutive, child-like form of Eros - a boy named Cecci with whom Caravaggio lived. As Caravaggio is generally considered bisexual, they may have been lovers... but they may have, instead, shared a different sort of love. As it so happened, Caravaggio was left an orphan at age 6 when his entire family was lost to the Black Death and, let's face it, an orphan of age 6 has to grow up painfully fast. Maybe Caravaggio, remembering his own past, felt protective of a boy like Cecci.
Cecci, on the other hand, as audacious, bodacious and jovial as he may be, has a certain gleam in his eye. Possibly it represents the Catch-22 of any variety of love. Can we ever fully trust another person? On the other hand, Cupid was known to be a trickster, and Cecci may have been merely modeling "in character."
In any case, utilizing Cupid/Eros, son of Venus, is a classical way to feature a GTS and this was not Caravaggio's last nod to the classical usage of the pentagonal Divina Proportione. Behold the spiral of Narcissus...
