Caravaggio: Colour Library

Phaidon Colour Library

by Timothy Wilson-Smith

Michelangelo Meresi da Caravaggio (1571-1610) was a boldly original artist who led a short and violent life. His sexually provocative nude figures and his dramatic religious paintings have a psychological power and an undiminished capacity to shock and disturb after almost four centuries. Timothy Wilson-Smith provides a lively and readable biography of an artist who has become an iconic figure in the late twentieth century, and presents a memorable selection of his works, from his early genre pictures to the dark and intense religious paintings of his years in exile.

Genres: Art, Art History, History, Nonfiction

128 pages, Paperback

First published August 10, 1998

Reviews

[Eavan · Rating 4 out of 5]

Using/used as paper reference as I read and research Caravaggio biographies during school. Very beautiful reproductions, though I am disappointed in the absence of large reproductions of his Boy Peeling Fruit (how can you see an artist's growth without the first one!?) Narcissus, Portrait of a Courtesan, and the first Sacrifice of Isaac and David and Goliath paintings. More geared to post-1600 Biblical paintings than earlier works.

Edit: Disappointed (to say the least) in the authors assertion that "It has become commonplace of modern criticism to see Caravaggio as a member of some homosexual set", then goes on to dismiss the written record that he quite possibly had a catamite and the fact that the boy in Amor Vincit Omnia is quite literally stepping out of a bed naked. He continues to argue that the focus of the aforementioned painting is instead the scientific tools he is stepping over, with Mr. Smith seeming to forget the erotic connotations of compasses and other wares at this time period in Italy, and the abundance of contemporary poetry written on it. Reminds me of words from a wonderful article:

"Scholars now seem more or less to agree in the perverse and counterintuitive assertion that first, there is no evidence that Caravaggio was homosexual, and second, he is primarily a spiritual Catholic artist...I do not recognise this Caravaggio, the sexually and confessionally straight altar boy. In fact, it is an absurdity, the product of art-historical research that obsesses about patrons and forgets to look at the pictures themselves."

Oh well, I was here for the pictures...

[isa · Rating 5 out of 5]

my favorite part:

"Caravaggio had to make his way by his wits. If he still had any part of his inheritance left he could have lived in moderate comfort for a year or so, but Caravaggio was never moderate. When he was taken in by a priest and fed on lettuce — he must have run out of money — he nicknamed his host 'Monsignor Insalata'.

[Kath · Rating 4 out of 5]

One of my favourite artists = great introduction to his life and work.

[K.i.l. Kenny · Rating 4 out of 5]

Newly returned from a trip to Florence and infatuated with Caravaggio, I picked this book up because it was reputed to have some of the best reproductions of C's work. If you've never been to Italy, there a general indifference to making the art accessible to the tourists--if a painting is hung perpendicularly to your line of sight and in a dark, roped-off niche, such as C's "The Calling of St. Matthew," then just enjoy the authenticity, baby, because the rest is too, too bad for you.

So great reproductions in a book about Italian art are a must, because you're actually going to get more detail out of an illustration than you could probably get from viewing the original. (Not a knock on seeing the original, mind you, just an acknowledgement of the, er, environmental limitations.)

The reproductions here do not disappoint. The colors are true, the size of most images is good, and the only real drawback is that, due to the age of the book, some images do not reflect recent conservation work, such as the restoration of "Medusa."

The text is opinionated and accessible enough to be interesting to a non-specialist, but it made me angry as often as it intrigued me. Art historians in general seem to have no qualms about making very intimate, detailed assumptions about artists' feelings, motivations, and undocumented lives, and Wilson-Smith engages wholeheartedly in this kind of nonsense. Again with regard to "Medusa," he writes, "In terms of its psychology, however, it is less successful. The boy who modelled the face (in preference to a girl) is more embarrassed than terrifying. For once Caravaggio cannot achieve an effect of horror..."

Well, who said Caravaggio was trying to achieve "horror" at all? Wilson-Smith seems able to recognize irony and "impudence" in other works--is it such a stretch to imagine that there's a message in C's use of a male model for a woman's image? That perhaps we're looking at a bit of "impudence" and twisted humor? That the fact that Medusa's in drag is intended to provoke a scandalized shriek of laughter and not "horror"?

I don't mind being made angry, though--it makes me think. ;) Wilson-Smith engaged me, and his quick takes have whetted my appetite for the new bio of C coming out next month from Andrew Graham-Dixon.

[Srikanth · Rating 4 out of 5]

Serviceable notes that go, refreshingly but misguidedly, against contemporary queer reading of Caravaggio's works, but excellent foot-high colour reproductions of 48 paintings presented chronologically.

[larry cowan · Rating 5 out of 5]

Quality plates and bio at a reasonable price

[keereads · Rating 5 out of 5]

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