Caravaggio: Master of Light and Dark--His Life in Paintings

by Rosa Giorgi

Traces the life of the Italian artist, analyzes his works, and explains the historical and social context of his painting

Genres: Art, Biography

143 pages, Paperback

First published January 1, 1998

About the author

Rosa Giorgi is an art historian who specializes in iconography and iconology. Her most recent publications include books on Michelangelo Merisi Da Caravaggio, Diego Velázquez, and El Greco. She is also the author of Saints in Art (2002) and Angels and Demons in Art (2003). In addition to writing, she teaches at the Catholic University and the Brera Picture Gallery in Milan, where she lives.

Reviews

[Tanis · Rating 1 out of 5]

I like Caravaggio but there is no saving this little guide. Its so badly done, all the most interesting pictures are spread across two pages so you lose most of them in the fold, unless you crack the spine and even then its hard to see the full picture. The text is even worse, full of typos and grammatical errors, but so badly written whole pages make no sense. I found I was re-reading something for sense on every page and in the end gave up to skim read which was less painful.

If that wasn't bad enough the interpretations of elements of the paintings were gibberish.

[Sarah · Rating 3 out of 5]

Just skimmed through- though the photos and illustrations were great, and even though many enlargements of details were included — it was still too small for me. I know this was just to be a quick highlights type book - and as that it succeeds

['Aussie Rick' · Rating 3 out of 5]

The main reason why I purchased this book was to assist me in viewing this artist's complete works when reading other mainstream books about Caravaggio, namely: 'Caravaggio: A Passionate Life' and 'M' - both excellent books. The colour plates were lovely and each had detailed text to assist you in your studies of his work. This is a nice and easy to read guide book to this artists beautiful work. The narrative provides enough detail about Caravaggio's life and work to give you the basic idea but do not expect a detailed account, you will have to look elsewhere. Overall this a quick reference guide and is well worth a look.

[Suzan Poisner · Rating 4 out of 5]

An early example of the anguished artist. It is amazing how widespread his impact on artistic style was for having only lived 38 years...38 years filled with rage and anguish.