The model was named in a memoir of the early 17th century as "Cecco", the diminutive for Francesco. He is possibly Francesco Boneri, identified with an artist active in the period and known as Cecco del Caravaggio 'Caravaggio's Cecco' , carrying a bow and arrows and trampling symbols of the warlike and peaceful arts and sciences underfoot. He is unclothed, and it is difficult to accept this grinning urchin as the Roman god Cupid - as difficult as it was to accept Caravaggio's other semi-clad adolescents as the various angels he painted in his canvases, wearing much the same stage-prop wings.
The point, however, is the intense yet ambiguous reality of the work: it is simultaneously Cupid and Cecco, as Caravaggio's Virgins were simultaneously the Mother of Christ and the Roman courtesans who modeled for them.
Caravaggio led a tumultuous life. He was notorious for brawling, even in a time and place when such behavior was commonplace, and the transcripts of his police records and trial proceedings fill several pages. On 29 May , he killed, possibly unintentionally, a young man named Ranuccio Tomassoni. Previously his high-placed patrons had protected him from the consequences of his escapades, but this time they could do nothing.
Caravaggio, outlawed, fled to Naples. There, outside the jurisdiction of the Roman authorities and protected by the Colonna family, the most famous painter in Rome became the most famous in Naples. His connections with the Colonnas led to a stream of important church commissions, including the Madonna of the Rosary, and The Seven Works of Mercy.
Despite his success in Naples, after only a few months in the city Caravaggio left for Malta, the headquarters of the Knights of Malta, presumably hoping that the patronage of Alof de Wignacourt, Grand Master of the Knights, could help him secure a pardon for Tomassoni's death. De Wignacourt proved so impressed at having the famous artist as official painter to the Order that he inducted him as a knight, and the early biographer Bellori records that the artist was well pleased with his success.
Major works from his Malta period include a huge Beheading of Saint John the Baptist the only painting to which he put his signature and a Portrait of Alof de Wignacourt and his Page, as well as portraits of other leading knights. Yet by late August he was arrested and imprisoned. The circumstances surrounding this abrupt change of fortune have long been a matter of speculation, but recent investigation has revealed it to have been the result of yet another brawl, during which the door of a house was battered down and a knight seriously wounded.
By December he had been expelled from the Order "as a foul and rotten member. Before the expulsion Caravaggio had escaped to Sicily and the company of his old friend Mario Minniti, who was now married and living in Syracuse. Together they set off on what amounted to a triumphal tour from Syracuse to Messina and on to the island capital, Palermo. In each city Caravaggio continued to win prestigious and well-paid commissions.
Among other works from this period are a Burial of St. His style continued to evolve, showing now friezes of figures isolated against vast empty backgrounds. After only nine months in Sicily Caravaggio returned to Naples. According to his earliest biographer he was being pursued by enemies while in Sicily and felt it safest to place himself under the protection of the Colonnas until he could secure his pardon from the pope now Paul V and return to Rome.
His style continued to evolve - Saint Ursula is caught in a moment of highest action and drama, as the arrow fired by the king of the Huns strikes her in the breast, unlike earlier paintings which had all the immobility of the posed models. The brushwork was much freer and more impressionistic. Had Caravaggio lived, something new would have come.
The Denial of Saint Peter, c. Oil on canvas, 94 x cm. Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York. In the chiaroscuro a woman points two fingers at Peter while a soldier points a third.
Caravaggio tells the story of Peter denying Christ three times with this symbolism. In Naples an attempt was made on his life, by persons unknown. At first it was reported in Rome that the "famous artist" Caravaggio was dead, but then it was learned that he was alive, but seriously disfigured in the face. He painted a Salome with the Head of John the Baptist Madrid , showing his own head on a platter, and sent it to de Wignacourt as a plea for forgiveness.
Perhaps at this time he painted also a David with the Head of Goliath, showing the young David with a strangely sorrowful expression gazing on the wounded head of the giant, which is again Caravaggio's.
This painting he may have sent to the unscrupulous art-loving cardinal-nephew Scipione Borghese, who had the power to grant or withhold pardons. Caravaggio went to Naples, and then to the island of Malta, an independent sovereignty and home of the Knights of Malta a religious military order like the Knights Templars. If Caravaggio could become a Knight of Malta, he would be in a better position to seek a papal pardon for the murder. In return for a painting of the Beheading of St John the Baptist, he was granted membership.
His social standing in Malta was high - his reward included two slaves and a gold chain. All was going to plan, until his temper got him into trouble again. He got into a fight with another knight and found himself in prison. He escaped, but was expelled from the order. Caravaggio travelled around Sicily and then returned to Naples where he was involved in yet another bar brawl which left him badly disfigured. In the meantime, however, important friends in Rome had successfully petitioned the Pope for a pardon - Caravaggio could return.
He loaded his belongings onto a ship but, for some unknown reason, was then arrested and had to buy his way out of jail. By the time he was released, the ship and all his possessions had sailed without him. As he made his way along the coast he fell ill, perhaps with malaria, and a few days later, alone and feverish, he died.
Visit us Plan your visit Floorplans Access Families. Exhibitions and events What's on now Exhibitions Events. Art and artists Search the collection Highlights from the collection Latest arrivals Picture of the month Contemporary residencies Latest stories.
Search Entire website. Early successes Arrogant, rebellious and a murderer, Caravaggio's short and tempestuous life matched the drama of his works.
Rome Caravaggio was a fast worker - but liked to play as hard as he worked. Matthew in a far more realistic light. His first version of "St. Matthew and the Angel" caused so much angst among his patrons that he had to redo it. For Caravaggio, however, the commission provided an exciting new direction for his painting, one in which he could lift traditional religious scenes and cast them with his own dark interpretation.
His biblical scenes became populated with the prostitutes, beggars and thieves whom he had encountered on the streets of Rome. In addition to some financial relief, the Contarelli Chapel commission also provided Caravaggio a wealth of exposure and work. His paintings from the next few years included "The Crucifixion of St.
Peter," "The Conversion of St. Controversy, though, only fueled Caravaggio's success. And as that success grew, so did the painter's own personal turmoil. He could be a violent man, with drastic mood swings and a love for drinking and gambling. A frequent fighter, Caravaggio eventually served a short prison sentence in following another painter's complaint that Caravaggio had attacked him. But the next few years only saw Caravaggio's temper becoming hotter.
His litany of assaults included throwing a plate of artichokes at a waiter in , and attacking Roman guards with stones in Wrote one observer: "After a fortnight's work he will swagger about for a month or two with a sword at his side and a servant following him, from one ballcourt to the next, ever ready to engage in a fight or an argument.
Caravaggio's "Judith Beheading Holofernes". His violence finally erupted with force in , when he killed a well-known Roman pimp named Ranuccio Tomassoni. Historians have long speculated about what was at the root of the crime. Some have suggested that it was over an unpaid debt, while others have claimed that it was the result of an argument over a game of tennis.
More recently, historians, including Andrew Graham-Dixon, have pointed to Caravaggio's lust for Tomassoni's wife, Lavinia. Immediately following the murder, Caravaggio fled Rome and sought refuge in a host of other locations: Naples, Malta and Sicily, among others. But even as he fled from punishment for his crime, fame followed Caravaggio.
In Malta, he was received into the Order of Malta as a Knight of Justice, an award that he was soon stripped of when the Order learned of the crime he had committed. However, even as he fled, Caravaggio continued to work. In Malta, he created "Beheading of St. John the Baptist" for the cathedral in Valletta. Francis and St. One of Caravaggio's more shocking paintings from this period is "Resurrection," in which the painter revealed a less saintly, more bedraggled Jesus Christ escaping from his tomb in the middle of the night.
This scene was no doubt inspired by events in Caravaggio's own life. By this time, Caravaggio had become a nervous wreck, always on the run and in constant fear for his life, so much so that he slept with his clothes on and with a dagger at his side. The murder that Caravaggio committed in was not the end of his violence.
John in Malta.
0コメント