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Caravaggio: A Life Sacred and Profane by Andrew Graham-Dixon - 4* - My Review

This book traces the tumultuous life of the late Renaissance and early Baroque Italian painter Michelangelo Merisi da Caravaggio (1571-1610). The biography starts with Caravaggio’s early life in Milan, artistic apprenticeship, rise to fame in Rome, eventual downfall, and exile. It chronicles the painter's multiple brushes with the law, his involvement in violent altercations, his flight from Rome after killing a man, final years as a fugitive in Malta, Sicily, and Naples, and death at age thirty-eight.

Graham-Dixon employs a novelistic approach to biography. His prose is descriptive and engaging. The book is structured chronologically and occasionally pauses to provide a detailed analysis of a specific painting at the point it was created. Graham-Dixon's background as an art critic is evident. He describes Caravaggio’s techniques, symbolism, unusual approach to chiaroscuro lighting, and portrayals of religious figures. I found it helped me to appreciate this book more if I looked at a photo of Caravaggio’s painting as I read its detailed description.

The book examines how Caravaggio's lack of male role models, criminal tendencies, and sensitivity to perceived slights to his honor influenced his life and artworks. I particularly enjoyed the author’s ability to balance art history with dramatic biographical storytelling, though there are several speculative reconstructions. Caravaggio was a remarkable artist plagued by demons of personal temperament, and this book really gave me a sense of his life and times.