Caravaggio (Basic Art)

by GILLES / MERISI DA CARAVAGGIO, MICHELANGELO LAMBERT, Gilles Néret (Editor)

Michelangelo Merisi da Caravaggio (1571–1610) was always a name to be reckoned with. Notorious bad boy of the Italian Baroque, the artist was at once celebrated and controversial, violent in temper, precise in technique, a creative master, and a man on the run. Though famed for his dramatic use of color, light, and shadow, it was above all Caravaggio’s boundary-breaking naturalism which scorched his name into the annals of art history. From the dirtied soles of feet to the sexualized languor of bare flesh, the artist allowed even sacred and biblical scenes to unfold with a startling, often visceral humanity. This vivid pictorial world was accompanied by an equally intense personal biography, scored by gambling, debts, drunken brawls, and even a murder charge. This book brings together more than 50 of Caravaggio’s most famous and revolutionary works to explore how and why this artist is now considered the most important painter of the early Baroque period and one of the defining influences of art history, without whom Ribera, Vermeer, Rembrandt, Delacroix, Courbet, and Manet could never have painted the way they did.

96 pages, Hardcover

Published June 17, 2016

Reviews

[Emily · Rating 3 out of 5]

The paintings are beautiful, text leaves more to be desired. Heavy focus on the provenance of paintings, who commissioned them. Wish there was more on the interpretation of the paintings, a look into what the details reflect, who he was inspired by, how he made a copy his own. Also would’ve been nice to have the descriptions directly next to the paintings, had to do lots of flipping back and forth. Does delve into his personal life, which can be more interesting, if not a bit repulsive. Overall a bit of a slog to read, it is more technical than creative in its writing. Which is a shame bc seeing such beautiful paintings, you want to know more details than it now hangs in France…snooze