He killed one man with a dagger in the groin during a ball game in Rome in 1606, and wounded several others, including a guard at Castel Sant’Angelo and a waiter whose face he cut open in a squabble about artichokes. He was sued for libel in Rome and mutilated in a tavern brawl in Naples. He was saturnine, coarse and queer. He thrashed about in the etiquette of early seicento cultivation like a shark in a net.
—Robert Hughes, ‘Master of the Gesture’, 1985
Biografia di Caravaggio
Caravaggio was born Michelangelo Mersi in 1571. His nickname comes from the town in which he was born: Caravaggio, Lombardy. He moved to Rome aged 21, and began to sell paintings on the street. Eventually he was recognised by the Cardinal Francesco del Monte, and received commissions which lead to his widespread success.
His work was shocking at the time, and we still do not entirely understand it. Much to the horror of his critics, he used ordinary working people with irregular, rough and characterful faces as models for his saints and showed them in recognisably contemporary surroundings.
He was a violent, alcoholic, and sexually depraved man. He would frequently threaten people in Rome, and was arrested more than once. In 1606, in a fight either over a woman or a tennis match, Caravaggio murdered a young man and chose to flee Rome. He went to Naples, then Malta, and travelled around Sicily late in life. While the Pope eventually pardoned him, he died before he could ever make it back to Rome.
Informazioni
This website is loosely based off the 1990 film All the Vermeers in New York.
I have chosen not to reproduce any images of the works because that would only be to perpetuate second-order phenomena which are harmful to both the viewer and the paintings as they deplete their finite aura. Pictures and reproductions of art have reduced, and for some destroyed, their sense of scale and fragility. This can only ever be an image of an image, not the thing, but a bright phantasm, a visual parody, whose relation to the original and actual work of art is that of a pornographic film to sex.
In order to commune with the Caravaggios you must travel to Rome and stand in the chapels or museums for at least 10-15 minutes.
Per approfondire
The best way to learn about Caravaggio is to watch the documentary made by the Australian critic Robert Hughes in 1975 — you can find it here.
Peter Robb’s book M (1998) is probably the best biography but Andrew Graham-Dixon’s 2010 one is OK too.
made by henry, 2022
Ciao
If you have compliments or questions or want to talk about Caravaggio you can text me on plus four four oh seven four nine oh oh one seven two two two