The painter was not only controversial and violent towards society but also towards his own work.
1. Caravaggio and His Beginnings: Misunderstood or Undisciplined?
Michele Angelo Merigi da Caravaggio (c. 1571-1610) was born in a time marked by the strong norms imposed by the Church after the Council of Trent (1545-1563). Caravaggio's paintings were treated as real offenses against religious art standards, with the artist not giving enough nobility and beauty to evangelical characters, thus troubling the very Council of Trent.
His painting depicted dirty and rough characters. But here comes the misunderstanding towards the artist's work: they were not filthy people but humble and destitute individuals approaching God. This aspect clashed greatly with the art of the time where saints were idealized. An example is how Caravaggio treated the representation of the Virgin. If we compare a work by Caravaggio to another by Pietro da Cortona on the same theme (Fig. 1), the differences are more than evident. While Cortona paints an idealized Saint Cecilia, Caravaggio represents Mary Magdalene pale, livid and in a very forced posture.
Fig. 1. Comparison between Saint Cecilia by Pietro da Cortona and Mary Magdalene by Caravaggio.
The Church was tough on the painter. They considered his works vulgar and unsuitable for uplifting the spirit. His works were rejected several times. It was said that The Virgin and Child trampling a snake was painted in an undignified manner, The Death of the Virgin was seen as the representation of a bloated woman who did not evoke any sense of piety, and St Matthew was depicted sitting with his legs bare, appearing more like a peasant than a saint.
Caravaggio has been labeled as misunderstood; however, in his paintings he shows surprising sensitive understanding of what was happening in his time. He endowed his characters with that inner life through the discreet treatment of light without idealizing them in a classicist manner. This aspect was one of the basic characteristics of his painting. Caravaggio's light is the transmitter of the "magical realism" of the painter, treated in such a way that it never lost its characteristic naturalism. In his mature works, all his characters were exalted by their light: vulgar figures, kneeling peasants, the bloated corpse of a woman representing the Virgin dead or the private soldier who figures as St Peter among others.
Classic and humanist art was characteristic of the sixteenth century. However, Caravaggio's personality went against the norms of the time. He saw with hostility any type of discipline that imposed a specific model on him to follow. His arrival in Rome happened at an opportune moment. In the spring of 1585, Philip Perotti, Cardinal of Montalto, was elected Pope and took the name Sixtus V, whose attitude was unfriendly towards classic art and humanism, an attitude that did not change during the pontificate of Clement VIII, successor to Sixtus V. It was a year after Clement's death when Caravaggio had to leave Rome.
He had a strange and difficult personality. His patron, Cardinal Monte, described him as "a very extravagant mind." Yet with all this, his clientele remained loyal; thus, for the ecclesiastics who commissioned work from him, it did not matter that the young Lombard painter whose works caused great commotion led an scandalous and unrestrained life because, despite everything, what prevailed was his outpouring of talent.
1.1. Stages of His Painting
Caravaggio died at a young age. Despite not reaching forty years, his pictorial career was very fruitful. His painting has three main stages, whose characteristics reflect the painter's state of mind at each moment:
- In the first stage of his painting, light colors prevail with themes of genre and religious subjects. The works of this period have a neutral background where figures in medium distance predominate.
- From 1597 onwards, primarily religious paintings dominate. A dark color palette stands out along with a very peculiar way of handling directed lighting -with a strong symbolic sense associated with the divine and sacred-, featuring large diagonals that fall intensely on an object and contrast with the rest of the composition which remains in darkness. This was called tenebrism, today chiaroscuro or high-contrast lighting. In these paintings, black is darker due to technical issues from using Judean asphalt.
- In his last stage, he becomes obsessed with themes of death and forgiveness.
The controversial figure of Caravaggio is surrounded by legends about his bad life. What has been proven is the influence of the ups and downs of his life on his painting. He ended up being a brilliant yet tormented painter. He was not recognized in his time nor afterwards, until the 19th century when romantic painters chose him as their banner. Currently, his personality continues to be analyzed, highlighting aspects such as rebellion, homosexuality, symbolic or religious meaning in his works. He was a great misunderstood artist of his time.
2. Maturity of the Painter, Rebellion in His Personality and Works.
From 1600 onwards, when Caravaggio was around thirty years old, his life was characterized by a high number of both pictorial works as well as social altercations. He lived in situations bordering on poverty, having to be sustained by acquaintances, suffered an illness that led him to the Ospedale della Consolazione in Rome where he spent a long period. All this influenced his personality and work.
Caravaggio's early works, completed at the end of the sixteenth century, show a lively young artist with great talents, slightly corrupted, perhaps even vicious, intelligent, sensitive, and sometimes tender but satirical. Some of these works include Bacchus with Wine and Grapes, the head of Medusa ornamented by live snakes, a Lute Player alongside an exquisite bouquet of fresh white flowers or a Youth with a Rose behind his Ear Terrified by a Lizard Bite. However, the optimistic and presumptuous attitude of the young master disappears after 1600. His magnificent manner is imbued with austere seriousness which is reflected in the Death of the Virgin, where not even accessories offered any delicacy. The basket of fruit on the table in the painting of The Disciples at Emmaus in London shows wilted leaves and putrefied apples with worms, instead of the shiny fruits of the Youth with a Basket of Fruit (Fig. 2). In his later works, there is no trace of satire or irony left. We see that profane scenes are scarce, which could be taken as an indication that something happened in his external life or inner experience. From 1600 onwards he begins to accumulate police incidents, clearly influencing both his life and his pictorial work.
Fig. 2. Comparison between the baskets of fruit in The Disciples at Emmaus and Youth with a Basket of Fruit.
At twenty-seven years old, Caravaggio was at the peak of his fame, with a promising future and security from several fixed commissions for paintings. With all this, he could have taken a calm attitude like that of his companions Annibale Carracci or Arpino. But exactly the opposite happened. The last decade of his life, from 1600 to 1610, was full of turbulent events. If we read through all the incidents month by month and year after year, it can be concluded that the painter had a great disdain for his safety. The second conclusion reached is that with none of these crimes did he seek personal gain. Rather, it's an outburst of his temperamental nature so uncontrolled that pathologically overreacted to trivial incidents. But Caravaggio’s true character cannot be judged solely by his criminal acts; the most significant data about his personality must be sought in his works without being negatively influenced by Baglione's personal hatred and Bellori's antagonism.
2.1. Influence of Character on His Work
It should be noted that the years from 1600 to 1606 were as abundant in criminal incidents as they were in artistic activity, leading to the conclusion that his artistic quality was not altered by his strong temperament. His sense of responsibility towards the tactile values of surfaces remained unchanged, contrasting with his irresponsible behavior.
In his early years, he painted fruits and flowers and all accessories seen in his earlier works, such as what we see in Emmaus, disappeared after 1600 in favor of a much broader and freer treatment of the whole. We see how, in some cases, Caravaggio dresses the figure of the Virgin with elegant clothes, fashionable and even indecorous.
The following table shows the dates of criminal incidents caused by the painter related to some of his pictorial works. As these social altercations advance in years and number, Caravaggio's painting becomes more aggressive in form, forcing postures; it represents unpleasant scenes or protagonists not worthy of being painted.
| YEAR | SOCIAL INCIDENT | PICTORIAL WORK |
| 1600-1602 | First mention in police archives | The Burial of Christ |
| 1605 | Detained for carrying weaponsImprisoned for insulting two womenCharged by a former patroness for throwing stones at her shutters | The Death of the Virgin |
| 1606-1607 | A fight leads to a duel where Caravaggio kills Ranuccio Tomassoni. The painter fled Rome. | The Beheading of John the Baptist |
| 1608 | A dispute with one of his superiors. He was arrested, tried and expelled from the Order of Malta. | The Burial of Saint Lucy |
| 1609 | An assault by his enemies at the doors of an inn. | Salome with the Head of John the Baptist |
2.2. Criticisms of the Painter
As can be seen, neither Caravaggio's life nor his work went unnoticed. The painter received numerous criticisms throughout his life that affected both his personal world and his professional career. Some of them are as follows:
- G. Baglione, Vite de’ pittori, scultori e architetti (1642): "Michelagnolo Amerigi was a satirical and haughty man (…) And some believe that he ruined painting."
- A. Félibien, Entretiens sur les Vies et les Ouvrages des plus excellents Peintres Anciens et Modernes (1666-1668): "Poussin did not like anything about Caravaggio who, according to him, had come into the world to destroy painting."
- A. F. Mengs, Lezioni pratiche di pittura (1760-1770): "Caravaggio lacked variety and correctness; therefore he was completely bad at drawing."
- Stendhal, Rome (1806): "I have seen some of his paintings in Berlin that were rejected by the same people who commissioned them for being too ugly."
- P. Selvatico, Storia estético-critica delle arti del disegno (1856): "Caravaggio was one of the most illustrious propagators in Italy of a system that later prevailed in the Dutch school, a system consisting in transforming what is repulsive in nature into beauty of art. The elevation of thought is not his aim; rather it is the imitation of any object from nature."
- G. Morelli (Ivan Lermolieff), Le Gallerie Borghese e Doria Pamphili in Roma (1889): "…a painter not very sympathetic, but with much ingenuity…"
3. Death of Caravaggio
On July 28 and 31, 1610, two avvisi announced to Rome the death of one of its most famous painters: Michelangelo Merisi da Caravaggio:
- July 28, 1610. Notice: "News has been received of the death of Michel Angelo Caravaggio, a famous painter eminent in the art of color and natural painting, due to illness in Port'Ercole."
- July 31, 1610. Notice: "The renowned painter Michiel Angelo da Caravaggio has died at Port'Ercole when he was on his way from Naples to Rome for having been granted a pardon by His Holiness for the capital crime he had committed."
4. Conclusion
To value Caravaggio's work today, one must understand it as it did not conform to the standards of his time. Compared to Annibale Carracci, Caravaggio was not against but different in understanding themes. His socio-political behavior differed greatly; while Carraci and his circle were opposed to Clement VII and favorable to the Spain-Italy alliance, Caravaggio's circle favored Clement VII who signed peace with France and opposed Spain. This was reflected in his painting: violent, aggressive, contrasting, and not going unnoticed. The strong character and turbulent life of the painter are perfectly reflected in his work.
The spiritual language of Caravaggio's paintings did not find any continuation in later artists. Those called caravaggisti were interested, almost exclusively, in other aspects of the painter: his chiaroscuro effects, his genre themes, his color and composition. However, they do not seem to have been able to understand fully the psychological and social elements of his religious painting. Artists like Gentileschi, Saraceni, Manfredi, and even Borgianni cannot be called religious painters in the same sense as Caravaggio. This painter was as controversial as unique both in his time and today.
BIBLIOGRAPHY
- Bottari, S. (1970). Caravaggio. Barcelona: Toray.
- Carmona Mato, E. (1993). Caravaggio. Madrid: Historia 16.
- Castria, F. (2005). The Baroque: 1600-1700, European Art from Caravaggio to Tiepolo. Barcelona: Electa, D.L.
- Friedlaender, W. (1995). Studies on Caravaggio. Madrid: Alianza.
- Schütze, S.: Caravaggio (2009). Complete Works. Köln: Taschen.
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