Second revised, updated and enlarged edition of Caravaggio documents. Three documentary sections permit the reader to trace the artistic production and historic events of Caravaggio's life. The first section is composed of 1100 archival documents (as compared to the 700 records collated in the first edition). These span the earliest references to the Merisi family in the mid-sixteenth century, to the last records concerning the history of individual paintings in the mid-nineteenth century. The second section is composed of transcriptions of the most important biographic records and descriptions of the artists work. In the third section, a close reading of seventeenth and eighteenth century inventories of notable Roman and European collections allows us to trace the individual history of every Caravaggio painting.
Gilbert devotes separate discussions to the Marquis and to Cardinal Mattei in developing his argument that each of them influenced Caravaggio in different ways. A collector of classical sculpture, the Marquis is connected to the classical mythological themes that are here identified in specific paintings. A study of Cardinal Mattei indicates that he was outstandingly devout, which was true of only a small number of cardinals during the period. Gilbert shows that the artist's two paintings for the Cardinal alter the previous patterns of representing their religious themes, in ways related to Counter-Reformation ideas. Scholars have long searched for the specific religious figure who inspired this quality in Caravaggio's work, resolved here by Gilbert's meticulous scholarship and carefully drawn connections.
Robb's extraordinary book about the great Italian painter Michelangelo Merisi from Caravaggio is being reprinted for the exhibition of the artist's work that opens at the Art Gallery of New South Wales in November and later moves to Melbourne. The book contains dozens of pictures. This will be a cheaper edition than before (the notes have been removed) and will have an insert giving page references to pictures in the exhibition.'Written with the urgency of a detective novel – compulsively readable.' – John McDonald, SYDNEY MORNING HERALD'A book that recreates the mirror Caravaggio held up to nature with singular delicacy as well as passion and panache.' – Hilary Spurling, NEW YORK TIMES BOOK REVIEW
Francine Prose's life of Caravaggio evokes the genius of this great artist through a brilliant reading of his paintings. Caravaggio defied the aesthetic conventions of his time; his use of ordinary people, realistically portrayed—street boys, prostitutes, the poor, the aged—was a profound and revolutionary innovation that left its mark on generations of artists. His insistence on painting from nature, on rendering the emotional truth of experience, whether religious or secular, makes him an artist who speaks across the centuries to our own time. Born in 1571 near Milan, Michelangelo Merisi (da Caravaggio) moved to Rome when he was twenty-one years old. He became a brilliant and successful artist, protected by the influential Cardinal del Monte and other patrons. But he was also a man of the streets who couldn't seem to free himself from its brawls and vendettas. In 1606 he fled Rome, apparently after killing another man in a dispute. He spent his last years in exile, in Naples, Malta, and Sicily, at once celebrated for his art and tormented by his enemies. Through it all, he produced masterpieces of astonishing complexity and power. Eventually he received a pardon from the Pope, only to die, in mysterious circumstances, on the way back to Rome in 1610. Francine Prose presents the brief but tumultuous life of one of the greatest of all painters with passion and acute sensitivity.
This volume considers Caravaggio's revolutionary realism from a range of perspectives, presenting new avenues for research by a plurality of leading scholars. First, it advances our understanding of Caravaggio's relationship with the new science of observation championed by Galileo. Second, it examines afresh the theoretical nature and artistic means of Caravaggio's seemingly direct realism. Third, it extends the horizons of research on Caravaggio's complex intellectual and social milieu between high and low cultures. Genevieve Warwick is Senior Lecturer in the Art History department at the University of Glasgow.
Thank you for visiting our website. Would you like to provide feedback on how we could improve your experience?
This site does not use any third party cookies with one exception — it uses cookies from Google to deliver its services and to analyze traffic.Learn More.