Caravaggio

Caravaggio, MICHEL ANGELO AMERIGI, or MORIGI DA, a celebrated Italian painter, was born in 1569 at Caravaggio (see above). His father, who was a mason, employed him in preparing plaster for the fresco-painters of Milan, and in this way the artistic genius of the boy was stirred. After studying the works of the great masters in that city for five years, and afterwards in Venice, where his colouring was for a time influenced by the paintings of Giorgione, he went to Rome, where he lived for some time in very reduced circumstances. At length a picture of his attracted the notice of Cardinal del Monte, who now patronised the young artist; his works became for a time popular, and even such painters as Guido and Domenichino found it necessary to imitate his style. But the ferocious and quarrelsome character of Caravaggio soon involved him in difficulties. Having fled from Rome to Malta on account of manslaughter, he obtained the favour of the Grand-master by painting an altar-piece in the church of St John, and other pictures. His fiery nature soon forced him to flee from Malta; and in making his way back to Rome, he was wounded, lost all his baggage, caught a violent fever, and on reaching Porto Ercole, lay down on a bank and died (1609), at the age of forty. Transcript of ordinary and often debased nature was the object aimed at by Caravaggio, who left the schools, and devoted himself to painting life as he found it in lanes, alleys, and other resorts of the lower classes. He studied no such matters as refined sentiment or the elevation of realities, but gave in his paintings expression to his own wild and gloomy character. His chiaroscuro is forced and untrue, but very effective. When he painted sacred subjects, he still remained faithful to the low realities of Italian life; so that several of his pictures executed for churches had to be removed from their places, on account of their want of harmony with sacred surroundings. Kugler, the German critic, has justly said of one of Caravaggio's most celebrated works, a 'Burial of Christ,' that it appears 'like nothing better than the funeral of a gypsy-chief-tain.' One of his best paintings, 'The Fraudulent Gamblers,' is preserved in the Sciarra Gallery at Rome; his 'Christ and the Disciples at Emmaus' is in the National Gallery, London; and seven of his works are in the Berlin Museum.—An earlier and less celebrated Italian painter, POLIDORO CALDARA DA CARAVAGGIO, was born about 1492, and murdered in 1543. He aided Raphael in the subordinate parts of his frescoes in the Vatican. His celebrated picture of 'Christ bearing the Cross' is in the Naples Museum.