Baroque Painting Essay

Few can dispute the beauty and adorn of the Baroque era. It is difficult to define this era as it was a depot after(prenominal)ward put to the ideas of the age between 1600 and 1750. The Baroque grew up at the beginning of the s crimsonteenth century in papal Rome, where, rather than a clearly defined style, it was a tendency, common to exclusively the tricks in short, it was a taste, a fashion (Conti 3)The cheatists of this beat tried to break remote from previous conventions, while at the same time hailing the past geni manipulations. It rivet on a tantalizing mixture of octogenarian and new, and on legal action a moment caught within a canvas.Baroque meant movement, desire for nobility, admire of the infinite and the non-infinite, of contrasts and bold fusion of altogether in all forms of art. It was as dramatic, exuberant, and theatrical as the preceding period had been serene and restrained. (Conti 4) In particular, the intricacies of sapless and shadow ameli orate by Caravaggio ar non meet pleasant to the eye of the past. A camera is now lend oneselfd, and adorning the walls of most houses you find black and white prints, efficaciously showing the contrasts between deep shadows and gleaming miniature.What is this, but the every mans taste to recreate what Caravaggio achieved? The impulse toward the adoption of this idiom (thematic use of light and shade) came from Italy, thus from a single Italian artist . . . known as Caravaggio Although his playact has been more attacked by some critics than appreciated, there is no doubt that he marked the beginning of a new epoch. . . His paintings showed sturdy peasants, innkeepers and gamblers and though sometimes they might be dressed as saints, apostles and fathers of the Church they represented populace in its most crude and harsh aspect.(Conti 40-41) Caravaggio was born in 1571, and in his relatively short sustenance time of thirty nine years, he managed to bring Italian art to a wh ole new level. His field of operations division changed over the years and depended largely upon his patrons desires. While much of his patronage, just like Leonardo de Vinci and Michelangelo before him, depended on the Church, the wealthiest and most dominant attract in Italian politics at the time, he was not unendingly in their favor. Caravaggio was a notorious brawler with a dark temperament. This temperament and wildness is easily visible in numerous of his work.While he started his career in the late 1590s painting young boys playing music or holding flowers, he was without a doubt most famous for his later works with more religious and often violent themes. It is in these works we crack his definitive use of light and dark. This technique, recreated by Caravaggio, was called tenebrism, and was in pith a more intense version of an already existing technique called chiaroscuro. This use of light and dark, of shadow and narrow beams of illumination, was highly effectiv e, and has inspired artists for m some(prenominal) years since. Indeed, . . in Caravaggios universe there can be no light without darkness. (Martin 223) This, along with his interesting and highly disputable engagement of commonplace folk of the time, helped his works to prepare out against others as dramatically as his use of light and shadow. He was a highly value and famous artists of his time, but while his works yieldd some of the strikingest artists of all time (including Velazquez and Monet), his fame diminished quickly following his death and until the early twentieth Century. Much of the information written about him came from contemporary enemies either fit artists or critics who did not approve of his works.Many of Caravaggios greatest works outflank somewhat subjects involved in movement as well as deep emotion. Rather than have a noble person pose, he not only chose lowly peasants and prostitutes as his subjects, but painted them in the throes of movement or action. This effect acts as a snapshot, a coup doeil into the sprightliness of the muckle within the painting. The effect of a camera could not produce a more fascinating result a confessedly study of benignant emotion and activity. Particularly regarding his religious subject matter he fell into controversy.He rarely used the pious perfection of affectation for his techniques, instead choosing to use a prostitute to model for the Virgin (Death of the Virgin), and an old man to pose as St. Matthew (St Matthew and the Angel). This choice made him popular and preposterous in some(prenominal) an(prenominal) circles, and earned him an eager and young following. But among the launch artist clique and in particular among certain members of the Church, his use of the peasants and the outcasts were concept to be vulgar and sacrilegious, too dark and menacing for display in the Church.He also refused to use existing works of art for his inspiration, instead choosing really anima teness subjects, and did not work from sketches, but used the back of his scrub directly on the canvas to outline his images. While he got a lot of bad attention for this Caravaggios work was not disallow his aim was to restore full coporeal density to the unstable figures of Mannerism. (Bazin 30) Caravaggios brio was as tempestuous as galore(postnominal) of his paintings and he was involved in some(prenominal) brawls. This, no doubt, contributed to his list of enemies who gave less than generous accounts of his life.Their mission nearly succeeded as his name did not reach the heights of popularity other artists achieved until the twentieth Century, make up though certain artists were aware of his works and used his influence. In 1606 he killed a young man, and was forced to flee his rich ally of Rome. Arriving in Naples, he was protected by the Colonna family, but after several incidents was forced to flee to Malta and then to Sicily. An attempt was made on his life in 1608 when he returned to Naples, but finally it was a fever that reportedly killed him in 1610.Caravaggio was never out of work, and wherever he went his paintings were generally highly prized. Despite his short career, and the lack of an official school, his influence was certainly felt, even if primarily in the rest of Europe and not his homeland of Italy. His influence was harvested instead in Spain, and in Flanders and Holland. (Conti 42) It is also true that this influence pushed the boundaries of time. Caravaggios direct influence was brief, though intense, and was confined to his immediate followers, many of them foreign-born, who worked in Rome.But the indirect consequences of his work for European art were far reaching and incalculable. (Kitson 41) The revivification of interest in his works in the 20th Century shows his crushed existing collection of fifty paintings to be of equal caliber to any of the greats and his unique technique can be said to have influenced even un exampled art. . . . in the Cicerone (Jacob Burckhardt) categorized Italian painting of the age of Rubens, from the Carracci and Caravaggio onwards, not as Baroque but as new-fangled, partly eclectic, partly representational. (Turner 36)Of all the paintings Caravaggio created his religious ones are the most riveting. Allegorical and fascinating all at the same time, they teach us something about the subjects and ourselves. The people in Caravaggios paintings are bound together by dramatic relationships which grind a sort all the problems of life, grief and death. From his paintings there emerges a pessimistic impression of valet destiny, and it was not surprising that Caravaggios art opened the way to that offensive exploration of the soul which attracted many of the painters of the seventeenth century.(Bazin 31) We dont see one of the greatest sacrifices in the humanness in Carr painting of Abraham Sacrificing Isaac. preferably we see a father pained at sacrificing his son, but set(p) to do it as Gods wish. As in many of Caravaggios paintings, the moment in time caught on canvas displays a moment of emotional anguish or change, and together with his use of shadows and light, the subjects beget not just the characters of a story, but real life benignant beings. There are no halos. No storm clouds representing Gods watching eye.Just a man about to do the unbelievable to his son, who is suddenly given an preference where before there was none. It is heart wrenching and very effective. Caravaggio abandoned many of the rules and guidelines of the highly successful artists of the Renaissance, whose main focus was the adoration and idolization of the human and the religious experience. This was not out of disrespect as was thought at the time, but instead was his attempt to enhance what had been started by these great masters.Yet this caused many to reject his art, while young artists of the time thrived on his art revolution. Although, they never made as much direct progress as he had himself, they did continue to use aspects of his art, picking and choosing the more forgiving and less controversial use of light and dark, while at the same time bypassing, or conveniently forgetting, probably the most important focus for the artist himself, that of the use of the ordinary. Probably one of the most effective and realistic paintings of his career was the agnosticism of Saint Thomas.In this painting, all of the features we attribute to Caravaggio are in evidence. Jesus stands to the odd of the painting while three old men, Thomas in the foreground, tincture at the future saint put his finger in the annoy in Jesus side. At the risk of putting too modern a gloss on his work, one could almost say that Caravaggio was the inventor of the anti-hero in religious art . . . Christ and Saints are dressed in drab clothes . . (they are) tough working men who would not stand out in a crowd . . .Ordinary people press around them in defiance of the Counter-Reformation doctrine that lay people could only nuzzle God through the intermediary of the clergy. (Kitson 101) All three men are old, Thomas coat is torn at the berm and there is an normal of amazed incredulity on each of the reflections. Caravaggios use of light and dark makes the wrinkles on their foreheads stand out all the more. This is an image of the disciples that people never saw before. Even the expression on Jesus face is captivating and completely endearing as he guides the doubting pass off of Thomas to his wound.The light comes from an unseen point to the left off-canvas and highlights the foreheads, the torn shoulder fabric and the exposed torso of Jesus. There is hardly a interrupt example of the use of light and shadow or the use of the ordinary man as the subject matter. The use of light in this field of study draws the eye towards the most important parts of the painting, the parts that tell the story. The use of light and shadow also show Thoma s progressing from the shadows of doubt into the light of faith and belief he is further out of the shadows than the other two, a symbolic, yet very natural, move towards illumination.What (Caravaggio) excels in is truth to the physical and mental facts of a situation . . . an insistence on incidental details . . . which corresponds to the way the eye notices small things in moments of crisis. (Kitson 101) Without a doubt, Caravaggios burst onto the art scene in 1600 caused a rippling effect throughout the art world. The naturalism of Caravaggio which was to have momentous consequences for the whole of European painting, was the first great liberating force in Baroque art. (Martin 41) Artwork that was highly sought after and appreciated in his lifetime, yet with a personality that was difficult to get along with, he was an enigmatic character with a trenchant for trouble. His ignominious and early death in 1610 was followed by an equally early lavishness of his influence and de scent into ignominy in his own country very(prenominal) soon, what had been started by Caravaggio was credited to others, and for over 400 years, his influence was seen but not heard.With the visual and symbolic impact of strong light and deep shadows, the modern art scene seeks to exemplify the great works of Caravaggio, a need which he started all those years ago. And in todays world it is in scant(p) doubt that the use of everyday culture and life is far more interesting a subject than that of the higher unknown. Caravaggios genius is in little doubt, and even though it took a little while for his appreciation to be felt again on a large level, it is comforting to know that the boundaries of art were pushed at a time when the world was recovering from the Renaissance.Though art was cultivated to a high level during that period, the elite still had something to learn from the everyday man, and understating something in a painting, as Caravaggio did, could have far more of an im pact in the long term. Caravaggio pushed the boundaries on a snobbish world and presented us with the gritty truth. His own life was a series of light periods and dark ones, and to this day his eccentricities have preserve his right as one of the greatest artists of the Baroque era, indeed of all time.Works Cited Conti, Flavio. How to Recognize Baroque Art. Italy Macdonald Educational Ltd. , 1978. Bazin, Germain. Baroque and Rococo. New York Thames and Hudson Ltd. , 1998. Martin, John Rupert. means and Civilization Baroque. London Penguin Books, 1989. Turner, Jane (ed. ). From Renaissance to Impressionism(The Grove Dictionary of Art). New York St. Martins Press, 2000. Kitson, Michael. The Age of Baroque. New York McGraw-Hill Book Company, 1966. Wikipedia Web Site Caravaggio Search.