Isabella Flores
Michelangelo Merisi da Caravaggio, known as Caravaggio, was an Italian painter active in Rome, Naples, Malta, and Sicily from the early 1590s to 1610. Caravaggio is best known for being a renowned yet controversial painter of the late 1500s and early 1600s. His use of chiaroscuro and realism helped create a new style of painting that came to be known as Baroque. His influence can be seen in the work of many later painters, including Peter Paul Rubens, Rembrandt, and Diego Velazquez. Artists heavily influenced by Caravaggio were called Caravaggisti or Caravagesques, and his style of painting was also referred to as Utrecht Caravaggism.
| Characteristics | Values |
|---|---|
| Style | Baroque |
| Realistic | Intense and unsettling |
| Subject matter | Religious and mythological scenes |
| Models | Everyday people |
| Use of chiaroscuro | Yes |
| Use of tenebrism | Yes |
| Use of spotlight effect | Yes |
| Use of brooding scenes in dark taverns | Yes |
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What You'll Learn
Baroque style founder
Michelangelo Merisi da Caravaggio, known as Caravaggio, is often regarded as the founder of the Baroque style of painting. He was a leading Italian painter of the late 16th and early 17th centuries, known for the intense realism of his large-scale religious works. Caravaggio's use of chiaroscuro and realism helped create a new style of painting that came to be known as Baroque.
The Baroque style emerged in the early 17th century, flourishing across Europe until the 1750s. It was encouraged by the Catholic Church as a means to counter the simplicity of Protestant art and architecture. The style is characterised by intricate details, deep colours, grandeur, and a focus on the theatrical, with a departure from the idealisation of religious figures. Baroque art aimed to evoke emotion and awe, with a proliferation of forms and colours, and the use of optical illusions.
The term "Baroque" is derived from the Portuguese "barroco", meaning an imperfect or irregularly shaped pearl. Initially, the term had negative connotations, as Baroque art was seen as bizarre and ostentatious. However, the Baroque style became widely adopted, influencing many later painters such as Peter Paul Rubens, Rembrandt, and Diego Velazquez.
Caravaggio's influence extended beyond the Baroque style. His work inspired a movement known as "Utrecht Caravaggism", which flourished in the 1920s and influenced artists such as Ribera, Vermeer, La Tour, and Rembrandt. Caravaggio's impact on European art was profound, with art critic Roberto Longhi claiming that "Rembrandt could never have existed without him". Caravaggio's unique style and technical mastery continue to be celebrated, leaving an enduring legacy in the history of art.
Overall, Caravaggio's innovative use of realism and chiaroscuro founded the Baroque style, influencing a generation of artists and shaping the course of European art.
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Chiaroscuro technique
Caravaggio, born Michelangelo Merisi da Caravaggio, was a leading Italian painter of the late 16th and early 17th centuries. He is best known for his intense and unsettling realism in large-scale religious works. Caravaggio's use of realism and chiaroscuro helped create a new style of painting called Baroque.
Chiaroscuro is a technique employed in visual arts to represent light and shadow to define three-dimensional objects. The term chiaroscuro comes from the Italian words 'chiaro' meaning light and 'scuro' meaning dark. It is also a technical term used by artists and art historians for the use of contrasts of light to achieve a sense of volume in modelling three-dimensional objects and figures. In drawings and prints, modelling chiaroscuro is often achieved by the use of hatching or shading by parallel lines.
Chiaroscuro woodcuts are old master prints in woodcut using two or more blocks printed in different colours. They were first produced to achieve similar effects to chiaroscuro drawings. Chiaroscuro woodcuts are printed in only one colour, with brown, grey, green, and sepia being preferred. The process attempted to imitate wash and watercolour drawings and also became popular as an inexpensive method of reproducing paintings.
In its most dramatic form, as in the works of Italian artists of the 17th century who came under the influence of Caravaggio, it was known as tenebrismo or tenebrism. Caravaggio and his followers used harsh, dramatic light to isolate their figures and heighten their emotional tension.
Chiaroscuro is mostly used for oil paintings. Baroque-era artists showcased how striking the method can be, which is why many artists today continue to implement the chiaroscuro technique, despite how challenging and time-consuming it is to achieve.
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Realism and religious works
Michelangelo Merisi da Caravaggio, known simply as Caravaggio, was a leading Italian painter of the late 16th and early 17th centuries. Caravaggio is best known for his intense and unsettling large-scale religious works, which utilised realism and chiaroscuro to create a new style of painting known as Baroque.
Caravaggio's paintings were highly influential, and he is regarded as having almost single-handedly created the Baroque style. His work combined theatrical, dramatic lighting with religious scenes set in dark, dingy taverns, filled with poor and marginalised figures. Caravaggio's use of chiaroscuro, a technique involving strong contrasts between light and dark, helped to spotlight the drama of his narratives. He was one of the first painters to use this technique, which became a defining characteristic of Baroque art.
Caravaggio's paintings were also notable for their use of everyday people as models for his religious and mythological scenes, giving them a sense of realism and immediacy. His first major piece, "The Fortune Teller", depicted Mario being cheated on by a gypsy girl, and introduced this new style to Roman artists. Caravaggio's work was visionary for his time, as no other artists were willing to attempt similar depictions.
Caravaggio's influence can be seen in the work of many later painters, including Peter Paul Rubens, Jusepe de Ribera, Gian Lorenzo Bernini, Rembrandt, Johannes Vermeer, and Diego Velazquez. Artists heavily influenced by Caravaggio were called "Caravaggisti" or "Caravagesques", and his work played a key role in defining 17th-century Italian art. Despite his acclaim, Caravaggio's turbulent life was marked by legal troubles, violence, and a volatile character, which ultimately led to his early death.
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'Caravaggisti' followers
Michelangelo Merisi da Caravaggio, known as Caravaggio, was a leading Italian painter of the late 16th and early 17th centuries. He is known for the intense and unsettling realism of his large-scale religious works. Caravaggio's use of realism and chiaroscuro helped to create a new style of painting that came to be known as Baroque.
Artists heavily influenced by Caravaggio were called "Caravaggisti" or "Caravagesques". The Ghent Caravaggisti and the Antwerp Caravaggisti are named after the cities in which they were principally active. The Ghent Caravaggisti included Jan Janssens, Melchior de la Mars, and Antoon van den Heuvel. The Antwerp Caravaggisti included Theodoor Rombouts, Gerard Seghers, Jan Cossiers, Adam de Coster, Jacques de l'Ange, and Jan van Dalen.
Some Flemish Caravaggisti travelled to Italy where they were influenced by Caravaggio and his followers. For example, Jacob van Oost painted genre and history paintings showing the influence of Caravaggio and his follower Manfredi. Another example is Louis Finson of Bruges who, after stays in Naples and Rome, spent most of his career in France. Hendrick de Somer of Lokeren or Lochristi spent most of his life and career in Naples, where he painted in a Caravaggist style influenced by the Spanish painter Jusepe de Ribera.
In the next generation of Caravaggisti, there were Carlo Saraceni, Bartolomeo Manfredi, and Orazio Borgianni. Gentileschi, despite being considerably older, was the only one of these artists to live much beyond 1620 and ended up as a court painter to Charles I of England. His daughter Artemisia Gentileschi was also stylistically close to Caravaggio and one of the most gifted of the movement. Caravaggio's brief stay in Naples produced a notable school of Neapolitan Caravaggisti, including Battistello Caracciolo and Carlo Sellitto. Caracciolo was an avid painter of frescoes, a medium that few of the Caravaggisti practiced.
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Utrecht Caravaggism
Michelangelo Merisi da Caravaggio, known simply as Caravaggio, was an Italian painter of the late 16th and early 17th centuries. Caravaggio is best known for his intense and unsettling realism in large-scale religious works. He is also known for his tumultuous life, marked by legal trouble and a violent death. Caravaggio played a key role in defining 17th-century Italian art, and his influence can be seen in the work of many later painters, including Peter Paul Rubens, Rembrandt, and Vermeer.
Caravaggio's style has been described as Baroque, and he is credited with helping to create this new style of painting, which emerged from Mannerism. Caravaggio's use of realism and chiaroscuro, as well as his choice to use everyday people as models for his religious and mythological scenes, gave his work a sense of realism and immediacy. This style, known as "Caravaggism" or "Caravaggisti," had a profound influence on other artists, who were called "Caravagesques" or "tenebrosi" ("shadowists").
The Utrecht Caravaggisti painted mainly history paintings and genre scenes, breaking with the dominant Northern Mannerism previously favoured in the Dutch Republic. They preferred a heightened realism borrowed from Caravaggio, using chiaroscuro effects to create dramatic compositions with a small number of figures portrayed in close-up. Their works were characterized by a direct and lifelike representation of figures.
The flourishing of Utrecht Caravaggism was short-lived, ending around 1630 when major artists of the movement died or changed their style. However, their influence persisted, impacting the work of later artists such as Vermeer, Rembrandt, and Gerrit Dou. The paintings by the Utrecht Caravaggists are considered recognizably Dutch, as they built upon Caravaggio's realism and adapted it within their own cultural context.
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Frequently asked questions
Caravaggio's style is referred to as Baroque.
Caravaggio is known for his use of chiaroscuro, a technique that involves strong contrasts between light and dark to create a dramatic effect. He also incorporated tenebrism, the use of dark shadows, and a spotlight effect to enhance the drama of his narratives. Caravaggio often depicted religious and mythological scenes using everyday people as models, giving his works a sense of realism and immediacy.
Caravaggio was likely influenced by Renaissance painters and Italian masters such as Savoldo, Moretto, Lotto, Palma Vecchi, Titian, Giorgione, and Leonardo da Vinci.
Caravaggio had a profound influence on the Baroque style that emerged from Mannerism. Artists who were heavily influenced by Caravaggio were called "Caravaggisti" or "Caravagesques", and his influence can be seen in the works of Peter Paul Rubens, Jusepe de Ribera, Gian Lorenzo Bernini, Rembrandt, Vermeer, and Diego Velazquez.
Caravaggio is known for his large-scale religious works, including "The Calling of Saint Matthew", "The Martyrdom of Saint Matthew", "The Conversion of St. Paul", "The Entombment of Christ", and "The Beheading of St. John the Baptist".
