Caravaggio: An Extraordinary Artist

Caravaggio (1571-1610) was one of the most extraordinary characters in the history of art. His fiery temper and wild behaviour led to a sometimes tempestuous life, and this was reflected in his paintings. His treatment of light added to their drama.

His Early Years

Caravaggio was the name that Michelangelo Merisi chose as his working name, this being the village near Milan from which his family came.

At the age of 12 he was apprenticed to the Milanese painter Simone Peterzano, and eight years later, thanks to inheriting money from his deceased parents, was able to move to Rome. This was where there were plenty of commissions being issued for works of art, but also lots of competition from many painters, sculptors and architects who had flooded into the eternal city.

He found it very difficult to get started and endured a period of poverty after his inheritance ran out. His luck changed when he joined the household of Cardinal Del Monte, the cardinal-protector of the painters’ academy in Rome.

Caravaggio’s paintings for the cardinal were mainly pictures of effeminate young men, which has given rise to questions about Caravaggio’s sexuality. However, this tendency was far more likely to have belonged to the patron rather than the artist.

His early works were relatively small pieces, including still-lifes and genre scenes, either on commission or for open sale. However, this was not the way to make serious money as an artist. What he really wanted was a commission to produce a large-scale altarpiece or something similar. This chance came in 1599 when he won a commission to produce two large paintings (on the life of St Matthew) for the Contarelli Chapel in the church of San Luigi dei Francesi. It is almost certain that this commission was obtained for him thanks to the influence of Cardinal Del Monte.

This was Carvaggio’s breakthrough moment. The paintings were widely admired and new commissions flooded his way, leading to his fame spreading across Europe. Did success go to his head, or did the extra workload lead to a form of stress-related mental illness? Whatever it was, Caravaggio’s character was henceforth very different from what it had been before.

Going Off the Rails

From 1600 onwards, reports appeared regularly that testified to antisocial and criminal behaviour on Caravaggio’s part.

In November 1600 he attacked a colleague with a stick, and in the following February he was brought before the magistrates accused of having raised his sword against a soldier. It was known that he roamed the streets at night, with his servant and his dog, looking to make trouble and get involved in brawls.

In 1603 a fellow artist brought a libel action against him, the result of which was that he was briefly imprisoned and only released on condition that he stayed at home and did not offend the artist in question again. He was threatened with being made a galley slave if he broke either condition.

In 1604 he was accused of throwing a dish of food at a waiter in a restaurant and then threatening the man with a sword. Later that year he was arrested for insulting a policeman.

His catalogue of misdemeanors in 1605 included carrying a sword and dagger without permission, attacking a lawyer in a quarrel over a girl, and throwing stones at his landlady’s windows when she accused him of not paying his rent.

However, these incidents were trivial by comparison with what happened in May 1606. A quarrel arose after a tennis match which Caravaggio had been playing, involved payment of a wager on the result. The fight that ensued between the friends of both players became serious and one of those involved, named Ranuccio Tommasoni, was killed after being attacked by Caravaggio.

Caravaggio went into hiding for three days and then fled from Rome. He spent the rest of his life hoping for a papal pardon that would allow him to return but he waited in vain. Until now he had always been able to escape the full consequences of his violent behaviour thanks to the influence of his patrons and powerful friends, but this was different. The friends got to work on his behalf but the task was far more difficult this time.

He would never set foot in Rome again.

His later life

It is not clear where Caravaggio went immediately after leaving Rome, but by October 1606 he was in Naples, where he was able to work on several major pieces including three altarpieces.

In July 1607 he left Naples and made for Malta, possibly at the invitation of the Knights of St John who wanted him to paint certain pictures for them. It is certainly true that Caravaggio did produce some important pieces on Malta, including his largest ever piece, the “Beheading of St John the Baptist” for Valetta Cathedral. However, Caravaggio’s state of mind during this time can be guessed from the fact he signed his name in blood on this painting, which was incidentally the only time that he signed any of his paintings.

In July 1608 Caravaggio was rewarded for his efforts by being made an honorary Knight of St John, but the good times did not last, due to his wild side breaking out again. Five months later he was arrested for quarrelling with a noble knight and thrown into prison. He escaped and fled to Sicily.

While on Sicily Caravaggio supported himself by painting three altarpieces, after which he returned to Naples. From there, in the summer of 1610, he set sail in a small boat up the Italian coast and landed at Port`Ercole, which was a garrison town under Spanish protection about 80 miles north of Rome. He had high hopes that his pardon would come through very soon, and this was as close to Papal territories as he could get, meaning that his journey back to Rome would be a short one.

However, things went very wrong when he was mistakenly arrested and held in prison. When he was released, two days later, his boat was no longer where he had left it. Desperate to recover his possessions on board the boat, he wandered along the shore in blazing heat and developed a raging fever that was to prove fatal. He died on 18th July 1610 aged only 39.

The longed-for pardon did eventually arrive, but too late for Caravaggio to be able to take advantage of it.

The Art of Caravaggio

Violence and brutality lie at the heart of much of Caravaggio’s output, so that throats are cut with blood streaming out of them, but in the context of their time this was not to be wondered at.

Many commissions for artists came from Church authorities, with the aim of presenting the stories of the Bible to a populace that was largely illiterate. Caravaggio was a master at showing scenes that ordinary people could relate to, so the stories of the New Testament were seen as though they had happened in the same place and time that the viewers lived in, with all their dirt and nastiness.

One example of this was his “Death of the Virgin” from 1605-6, which was painted as a church altarpiece. This was rejected by the church that it was intended for, because of its excessive realism. There are no saintly blue robes, halos or angels here, but the bloated corpse of a woman with partially bare legs, surrounded by weeping onlookers. There were even rumours that Caravaggio’s model for the Virgin was a local prostitute who was actually dead.

Caravaggio’s style was far removed from the “high art” of Renaissance masters such as Raphael and Michelangelo, appearing to many as being vulgar, rude and provocative and possessing nothing in terms of decorum, grace or beauty. “Death of the Virgin” was not the only painting to be rejected by a commissioning church, but Caravaggio was always assured of a sale to a private collector when this happened.

Chiaroscuro

This means contrast between light and dark, and Caravaggio made good use of this feature in many of his works, often to an exaggerated degree. His figures are lit by a strong, raking light that casts deep shadows and has the effect of heightening the drama of the scene. As well as giving depth to his scenes, Caravaggio’s chiaroscuro added to his realism, given that interiors at that time would have been lit by candles or weak lanterns and there would have been many dark corners.