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Caravaggio1571 – 1610Italian Baroque Painter

Sick Bacchus1593, oil on canvas,

26” x 20-1/2”,Galleria Borghese,

Rome Italy

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Caravaggio1571 – 1610Italian Baroque Painter

Boy with Basket of Fruit1593-94, oil on canvas,

27-1/2” x 26-3/8”,Galleria Borghese,

Rome, Italy

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Caravaggio1571 – 1610Italian Baroque Painter

Boy Bitten by a Lizard1596-7, oil on canvas,

27-1/2” x 22-3/8”,National Gallery,London, England

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Caravaggio 1571 – 1610Italian Baroque Painter

The Cardsharps1594-5, oil on canvas, 39” x 54”,

Kimball Art Museum, Ft. Worth, Texas

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Caravaggio1571 – 1610Italian Baroque Painter

Bacchus1595-7, oil on canvas,

37-3/8” x 33-1/2”,Uffizi Gallery,

Florence, Italy

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Caravaggio 1571 – 1610Italian Baroque Painter

The Fortune Teller1598-9, oil on canvas,

39” x 52-3/8”,Musée du Louvre, Paris, France

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Caravaggio 1571 – 1610Italian Baroque Painter

Caravaggio’s Mature PeriodFrom 1597 onward, Caravaggio turned almost exclusively to religious subjects. He introduced violent gestures and physical movement to intensify the emotionalism of the spiritual event. In the foreground, radically foreshortened figures project out from the picture plane, compelling the viewer to become a participant. From 1600 until his death, most of his works exhibit the following characteristics:

• Dramatic light in a darkened setting causing sharp contrasts of light and dark, which heightened the drama and increased the feeling of three-dimensionality. The light source was often out of view on the left.

• Insistence on realism when depicting characters. They reacted to situations in realistic ways, suffering real emotions, even if they were saints. Not idealized.

• The scenes were suspended moments in time. He painted a brief break before the action continued to show the emotions in the characters’ faces and actions.

• The settings are minimal, with only a few details to convey the scene.

• The space is usually shallow and the figures are positioned in the foreground, oftenseeming to emerge out into the viewer’s space through foreshortening.

• Compositions were based on intertwining diagonal lines.

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Caravaggio1571 – 1610Italian Baroque Painter

The Calling of St. Matthew1599-1600, oil on canvas,

10’ 7-1/2” x 11’ 2”,Contarelli Chapel,

Church of San Luigi dei Francesi, Rome, Italy

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Caravaggio1571 – 1610Italian Baroque Painter

The Martyrdom of St. Matthew1599-1600, oil on canvas,

10’ 7-1/2” x 11’ 3”,Contarelli Chapel,

Church ofSan Luigi dei Francesi,

Rome, Italy

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Caravaggio1571 – 1610Italian Baroque Painter

The Conversion of St. Paul1600-1, oil on canvas,

7’ 6-1/2” x 5’ 10”,Cerasi Chapel,

Church of Santa Maria del Popolo,Rome, Italy

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Caravaggio1571 – 1610Italian Baroque Painter

Basket of Fruitca. 1600-1, oil on canvas,

18-1/8” x 25-3/8”,Pinacoteca Ambrosiana, Milan, Italy

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Caravaggio1571 – 1610Italian Baroque Painter

Supper at Emmausca. 1600-01

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Caravaggio1571 – 1610Italian Baroque Painter

The Entombment(The Deposition of

Christ)1604