Annoounces.com - Caravaggio, the final years

Caravaggio, the final years
[national gallery] - [Exhibition] - [Wednesday 23rd, February 2005]

Click for an enlargement of Caravaggio, 'The Flagellation'.

Detail of Caravaggio, 'The Flagellation', 1607.
Museo Nazionale di Capodimonte, Naples, on deposit from the Church of San Domenico Maggiore, property of the Fondo Edifici di Culto.

Supported by the American Friends of the National Gallery as a result of a generous grant from Howard and Roberta Ahmanson.

Caravaggio (1571 - 1610) was at the height of his fame as the most original and powerful painter of his day, when in May 1606, he killed a man in a duel. With a capital sentence on his head, he was forced to flee Rome, never to return.

During the remaining four years of his life, Caravaggio's art underwent a dramatic transformation as he moved restlessly from Naples to Malta to Sicily. He continued to use intensely observed realism and dramatic lighting to endow his paintings with a compelling sense of actuality. However, the mood of the pictures became more introspective as he probed the human condition more acutely and with greater sympathy than ever before.

This exhibition concentrates on this relatively little known period in Caravaggio's career. It brings together paintings from the remote centres in which he worked so that his profound late style can be fully appreciated for the first time. The exhibition has been organized by the National Gallery and the Soprintendenza Speciale per il Polo Museale di Napoli.

Caravaggio, 'The Supper at Emmaus', 1601. London, The National Gallery.

CARAVAGGIO, Michelangelo Merisi da

1571 - 1610
Italian
Caravaggio is the archetypal artist-rebel whose tempestuous life matched the drama of his works. The immediacy of his mature paintings was achieved by the uncompromising representation of people and objects from life, intense and theatrical lighting, and strong foreshortening. His style was the main alternative to Mannerism and to Annibale Carracci's anti-Mannerist style.

Michelangelo Merisi came from Caravaggio, near Milan. He moved to Rome in the early 1590s specialising in still lifes of fruit and flowers, and later in half-length figures such as 'Boy bitten by a Lizard'. An early patron was Cardinal del Monte, who acquired commissions for him. These included altarpieces and narrative scenes, often showing dramatic moments of revelation. In 1606 Caravaggio killed a man in a duel, fled Rome, and settled in Naples, where he continued to paint religious works. Two years later he became a Knight of Malta, but was briefly imprisoned in Malta. He journeyed in Sicily and southern Italy. Many late works, such as 'Salome receives the Head of Saint John the Baptist' are dark and melancholy. In 1610 Caravaggio was pardoned for the murder, but died of a fever shortly afterwards.

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