Art 102 Renaissance to Modern

Spring 2012 Prof Hoy

Caravaggio Study Guide

Caravaggio

An artist who, as one cardinal put it, crosses “between the sacred and the profane.” He is definitely Baroque in that paints in such a way as to make art immediate and dramatic, with instant accessibility. He incorporates high drama, intensity, and direct appeal to the emotions.

But unlike Bernini’s perfected, classical figures, Caravaggio makes paintings about people we might know, showing scenes of everyday life. He in some sense makes a mockery of viewers by showing a seedy underworld. The French painter Nicolas Poussin said that Caravaggio’s portrayal of prostitutes, criminals, and laborers with dirty hands and feet flew in the face of the true ideals of art, which were to represent pure and perfect beauty, proportions, and classical decorum.

Fortune Teller:

No artist before Caravaggio had made a gypsy fortuneteller the central subject of a painting. This is a scene of a young dandy having his fortune told by a gypsy. She is in the process of slipping the gold ring of the young dandy off his finger as she reads his palm. The painting shows Caravaggio’s penchant for pulling people off the street or out of the tavern, but it does not actually show the tavern—instead, like in most of Caravaggio’s painting, there is no background, just a wall and a play of shadows, which emphasizes the stagelike setting on which the drama is playing out.

Bacchus:

In this painting, the god of wine offers up his goblet to the viewer. Bacchus leans back on the bedding in a sexualized posture. The sheets are not pure white, but dingy and rumpled. Bacchus is leaning on a bed of filth, not on highbrow classical draping.

The figure himself is slightly odd. This is not a perfected indoor body, but someone who has been out on the streets. It is the body of a laborer. He has dirty fingernails, and overall a patina of dirt. So this “God” is actually just a dressed up young boy from the streets.

This creates a sense of the immediate—this is a figure and an image that pertains to one’s own world, and makes immediate, legible sense. Caravaggio creates a relationship between viewers and the world of the painting.

Bacchus is paired with a still-life basket. Still lives give you the passage of time through states of decay. This is not just an imaginary basket, but a real one, with imperfections. Still life and Bacchus are placed in relation to one another.

Boy Bitten By Lizard

Another painting that explicitly invokes sexuality. Certain aspects of this painting can be interpreted symbolically, and the painting calls out for interpretation of this kind. Roses are often associated with Venus and sexuality, and the rose worn behind the ear is considered to be a sexual come-on. Cherries also have sexual connotations. The lizard was thought to have a deadly bite, but the Greek word for lizard is similar to the word phallus, and thus also carries a sexual connotation. Even the particular finger that is bitten has that association. This picture seems to have been constructed to be overtly provocative, and is full of double entendres.

This painting is done in the artist’s studio, and he does nothing to hide this fact. He draws posed models from life and sets them in vignettes. There is never a background in these paintings because the background is the wall of the studio. Sharp, dramatic lighting with raking light and shadow is achieved because Caravaggio uses artificial light, and uses it for dramatic effect. He is very Baroque in this way in that he follows the notion that art should be extremely intense.

Parmigianino Cupid Carving his Bow vs. Caravaggio’s Amor Victorius 1601-2

Cupid

Love and lust ditracts the mind from high-minded pursuits. Dangers of desire. Playful gentleness.

Caravaggio takes Parmigianino’s motif and twists it.

Pose is also clearly derived from one of Michelangelo’s Ignudi from the Sistine Chapel nearly a century earlier. There is a distinct perversity in this image. There is a marked violence in cupid’s activities. Phallic reference of arrows, but about to wound himself. Mocking expression. No more coyness. It is difficult to know how to render laughter, but Caravaggio does it. Giant predatory wings, not little decorative ones as in Parmigianino. Sensual grazing of feathers on other thigh. Unusual pose—left arm is invisible. Predatory, disturbing, and openly mocking. Mock artistic tradition and its expectations, even as it appeals to baroque artistic desires.

Caravaggio also did a number of religious paintings. These meet with mixed success. Some rejected. Something wildly inappropriate about his work.

Conversion of St. Paul

Commissioned for Cerasi Chapel in Santa Maria del Popolo

One of two paintings, the other of which is the crucifixion of St. Peter.

Caravaggio painted two early versions that were rejected because the patron did not approve them.

The second version is more simplified, with no personification of God visible in the painting. The conversion is indicated by a great flash of light.

This is a very psychological interpretation of the event of St. Paul’s conversion, which makes the painting seem very modern.

The use of light is highly theatrical, and thus Baroque.

The figures are thrust to the front of the picture plane, almost interjecting into the viewer’s space.

Is a painting about undeserved grace, a subject with which Caravaggio is fascinated.

Crucifixion of St. Peter

Part of a pair painted for Cerasi Chapel, the other painting in which is the Conversion of St. Paul.

The Conversion is all about stillness, a frozen moment in time, whereas this painting is full of physical action—of a progression from squatting to standing.

X-shaped composition—Baroque painting often uses diagonals, either single diagonals or diagonals crossing in an X.

The painting is reduced to absolute essentials—there is no background, no busyness, just the sense of physical strain and immediacy.

The Inspiration of St. Matthew

The first of two versions, commissioned as the altarpiece for the Contarelli Chapel. A couple of problems with this picture: one, the figure of Matthew looks like his hand is being directly guided by the angelic figure, which leads to a possible interpretation that Matthew is a simpleton or illiterate. Also, Matthew’s foot seems to protrude beyond the picture plane, pointing directly at the head of the priest who would be delivering mass.

The Inspiration of St. Matthew

The second version is more decorous than the first. Matthew receives instructions from the angel, but seems capable of writing on his own. This version preserves some of the sculptural effects of the first—the stool teeters on the edge of the floorboards, threatening to fall into the space of the viewer. Sense of dynamism is emphasized by swirling lines of the angel and the posture of Matthew.

The Entombment

Painted as an altarpiece for a chapel dedicated to the theme of the Pietà. Implicates the viewer in the space-- Caravaggio reduces the space between the viewer and the action of the painting, so that the viewer becomes, almost, a participant in the work. The painting is positioned over our heads, so that we are placed down in the grave as Christ is lowered down upon us. Diagonal composition in which there is a slow trajectory bringing the figure of Christ down into the viewer’s world. Very physical portrayal—can see the fingers of the bearers digging into Christ’s flesh.