Michelangelo Merisi da Caravaggio Giclée Art Prints Gallery 3 of 4

With his innovative style, Caravaggio (1571-1610) had a defining influence on the most prominent European artists of the 17th century and on the overall development of painting.

After training in Milan, he went to Rome at about the age of twenty. Then lacking in means, he led a carefree life and painted for a living, soon attracting the attention of several prelates. In 1598 he received a substantial commission, to paint the Contarelli Chapel in the church of San Luigi dei Francesi. Caravaggio re-created three episodes from the Life of St Matthew, whose dramatic and gritty realism gave each scene new emotional power. The artist thus demonstrates the power of his genius and sharply confronts the mannerisms of the age.

After 1600, he produced only works with religious subjects. His style is monumental, characterized by vivid contrasts between light and shadow (Assumption of the Virgin). The models of his Madonnas and saints are those who usually keep him company in the cafés and pubs or he meets in the streets, the slums whose daily life he shares. He leads a scandalous life and often clashes with the justice authorities. In 1606 he was accused of murder and fled to Naples, Malta, then to Sicily. His painting becomes more austere and restrained - a sign of resignation; the subjects are more serene, radiating serenity (Nativity, Adoration of the Shepherds). He goes to Naples again when he learns that the Pope is ready to pardon him. Just then he finds his death on the beach of Porto Ecole. He died when he was only thirty-nine years old.

Caravaggio's work made a revolution, opposing academic classicism and the illusionistic tendency of the Baroque. Through their immediate, brutal reading of reality, his paintings inexorably rivet the eye and suggest the emotions that fill them.