Art Historian Andrew Graham-Dixon brings his experience and passion to bring a new perspective on Caravaggio and an in-depth study of his life events from beginning to end, piecing together the known facts along with his artwork in chronological order. A fascinating insight into the man and the times he lived in as well as the struggles and criticisms he faced for his trail-blazing style of chiaroscuro and using poor ‘everyday’ models to depict saintly religious figures.
KEY LEARNING POINTS
Caravaggio was being true to himself with his use of models with dirty feet and torn, ragged clothing. He did have a unique style which he developed.
He did have a thorough knowledge of the Bible in order to be able to produce such conceptual ideas and compositions to tell stories from Antiquity.
His breakthrough use of chiaroscuro gave his works a “lightening flash” quality to them, and this heavily influenced a host of artists who followed in his style, Rembrandt was known to have seen examples of Caravaggio’s work despite never visiting Rome, and there are some similarities in Rembrandt’s use of light and dark.
Caravaggio’s brush work which appears smooth in reprints, is actually rather rough in places. Having witnessed the ‘Beyond Caravaggio’ exhibition at Edinburgh’s National Gallery, I was rather surprised at the outstretched hand of the disciple on the right hand side of ‘Supper at Emmeaus’, 1601, where there is no blending between the yellow ochre and burnt sienna tones, it is left to be optically blended by the viewer – two hundred and fifty years before Seurat’s pointillism became fashionable. Optical perspective illusion of viewing work from a designated distance away. Up close, the features of the figures appear wrong, using the same example of the 1601 painting ‘Supper at Emmeaus’, the face of Christ appears slightly too wide, the disciple on the right with both arms outstretched has hands that are the same size – surely some foreshortening is required? Stand back about fifteen feet and the perspective suddenly snaps into place. Can’t help but wonder if some form of anamorphic perspective was being employed – Caravaggio would have been aware of the height that the alter piece was being installed in – did he re-create this in his studio?
Art is often better appreciated when viewed first hand in the flesh and not through a screen – although certain circumstances will make this impossible.
Neil C Drawing 2 