Read Online Caravaggio: A Passionate Life by Desmond Seward - Free Book Online
Authors: Desmond Seward
Ads: Link
pictures, certainly not in his later paintings.
XII
“Nature the only subject fit for his brush,” 1596
A lthough Caravaggio no longer needed to support himself, he worked with ferocious energy. Nor did he have any intention of restricting himself to jeux d’esprit like the
Concert
or the
Lute Player
, produced in unusually sunny moments. A man of many moods, he suffered from the same overriding melancholy as his namesake Michelangelo.
Caravaggio “thought Nature the only subject fit for his brush,” says Bellori, explaining that Caravaggio painted
The Fortune Teller
to make the point. He “stopped a gypsy as she was going down the street near his house, and, taking her home, painted her foretelling the future, as is the custom of the Egyptian race.” He was, however, by no means the first painter in Rome to reject Mannerism. In 1595 Cardinal Odoardo Farnese, nephew of Cardinal Alessandro, had brought Annibale Carracci from Bologna to work on frescoes at the Palazzo Farnese. Annibale and his two Carracci cousins were so eager to learn from nature that they made detailed anatomical studies of human corpses, while Annibale painted a
Butcher’s Shop
. Nothing could be more brutally realistic than the dead and bleeding Christ of the
Crucifixion
with its dreadful wounds, which Annibale took with him to Rome. This gruesome emphasis on Christ’s suffering reflects the Tridentine decrees onart, which urged artists to stress the reality of the Gospel story. It is unlikely that Caravaggio did not, at some stage, see Annibale’s frescoes and the
Crucifixion
. Ironically, Annibale would one day dismiss Caravaggio’s style as
troppo naturale
.
Caravaggio must have been aware of naturalist painters of the past before he heard of the Carraci or saw their work. Now that he was being noticed, he rejected every current artistic theory in a way that many of his contemporaries thought verged on iconoclasm. He painted only what he could see in nature. Yet, like Annibale Carracci, and no doubt unconsciously, he was responding to the Counter-Reformation’s demand that simple people be able to understand any religious painting. Even before entering the Palazzo Madama, he had been attempting religious themes. The first example to survive may be the
Penitent Magdalene
at the Doria Pamphili Gallery. Scarcely one of his best pictures, it was admired by Bellori: “He painted a girl sitting on a little chair in the act of drying her hair, with her hands on her lap, and he shows her in a room on whose floor he has placed a little jar of ointment, with ornaments and jewels to signify that she is Mary Magdalene. She holds her head a little on one side, her cheek, neck and bosom being painted in clean, easy, honest colors, their simplicity emphasized by the whole figure’s sheer straightforwardness, with her arms covered by a blouse and with her yellow dress pulled up to her knee, revealing a white petticoat of flowered damask.” Bellori explains that he has described the picture at such length to demonstrate what a natural style Caravaggio had, and how he had been able to find exactly the right color.
Another of Caravaggio’s early religious paintings was the
Rest on the Flight into Egypt
, also at the Doria Pamphili Gallery, which was much admired by Bellori: “An angel stands on one side and plays the violin, while a seated St. Joseph holds open a book of music for him; the angel is very beautiful and, by graciously showing us his profile, displays his winged shoulders and the rest of his naked body, which is partly covered by drapery. Onthe other side sits the Madonna who, bending her head, seems as though asleep with her baby on her breast.”
With its wonderful serenity, this is probably the
happiest
picture ever painted by Caravaggio. The gentleness and tranquility are most moving. Each face is full of kindness, even that of the donkey, whose brown eye is like a great gleaming jewel. The whole composition has been described by
XII
“Nature the only subject fit for his brush,” 1596
A lthough Caravaggio no longer needed to support himself, he worked with ferocious energy. Nor did he have any intention of restricting himself to jeux d’esprit like the
Concert
or the
Lute Player
, produced in unusually sunny moments. A man of many moods, he suffered from the same overriding melancholy as his namesake Michelangelo.
Caravaggio “thought Nature the only subject fit for his brush,” says Bellori, explaining that Caravaggio painted
The Fortune Teller
to make the point. He “stopped a gypsy as she was going down the street near his house, and, taking her home, painted her foretelling the future, as is the custom of the Egyptian race.” He was, however, by no means the first painter in Rome to reject Mannerism. In 1595 Cardinal Odoardo Farnese, nephew of Cardinal Alessandro, had brought Annibale Carracci from Bologna to work on frescoes at the Palazzo Farnese. Annibale and his two Carracci cousins were so eager to learn from nature that they made detailed anatomical studies of human corpses, while Annibale painted a
Butcher’s Shop
. Nothing could be more brutally realistic than the dead and bleeding Christ of the
Crucifixion
with its dreadful wounds, which Annibale took with him to Rome. This gruesome emphasis on Christ’s suffering reflects the Tridentine decrees onart, which urged artists to stress the reality of the Gospel story. It is unlikely that Caravaggio did not, at some stage, see Annibale’s frescoes and the
Crucifixion
. Ironically, Annibale would one day dismiss Caravaggio’s style as
troppo naturale
.
Caravaggio must have been aware of naturalist painters of the past before he heard of the Carraci or saw their work. Now that he was being noticed, he rejected every current artistic theory in a way that many of his contemporaries thought verged on iconoclasm. He painted only what he could see in nature. Yet, like Annibale Carracci, and no doubt unconsciously, he was responding to the Counter-Reformation’s demand that simple people be able to understand any religious painting. Even before entering the Palazzo Madama, he had been attempting religious themes. The first example to survive may be the
Penitent Magdalene
at the Doria Pamphili Gallery. Scarcely one of his best pictures, it was admired by Bellori: “He painted a girl sitting on a little chair in the act of drying her hair, with her hands on her lap, and he shows her in a room on whose floor he has placed a little jar of ointment, with ornaments and jewels to signify that she is Mary Magdalene. She holds her head a little on one side, her cheek, neck and bosom being painted in clean, easy, honest colors, their simplicity emphasized by the whole figure’s sheer straightforwardness, with her arms covered by a blouse and with her yellow dress pulled up to her knee, revealing a white petticoat of flowered damask.” Bellori explains that he has described the picture at such length to demonstrate what a natural style Caravaggio had, and how he had been able to find exactly the right color.
Another of Caravaggio’s early religious paintings was the
Rest on the Flight into Egypt
, also at the Doria Pamphili Gallery, which was much admired by Bellori: “An angel stands on one side and plays the violin, while a seated St. Joseph holds open a book of music for him; the angel is very beautiful and, by graciously showing us his profile, displays his winged shoulders and the rest of his naked body, which is partly covered by drapery. Onthe other side sits the Madonna who, bending her head, seems as though asleep with her baby on her breast.”
With its wonderful serenity, this is probably the
happiest
picture ever painted by Caravaggio. The gentleness and tranquility are most moving. Each face is full of kindness, even that of the donkey, whose brown eye is like a great gleaming jewel. The whole composition has been described by
Similar Books
