ART HISTORY ESSAY (no reference)

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Caravaggio was the most famous of Italian Baroque artists during his lifetime – after his death, he was largely forgotten until the 20th century. He had a disdain for classical masters and was often referred to as the Antichrist of painting by some. Not only is his work realistic, but naturalistic as well especially in his dramatic use of chiaroscuro called tenebrism . Trained in Milan under a master who had himself trained under Titian, Caravaggio moved to Rome in his early 20s. Huge new churches and palazzi were being built in Rome in the decades of the late 16th and early 17th Centuries, and paintings were needed to fill them. The Counter-Reformation Church searched for authentic religious art with which to counter the threat of Protestantism, and for this task the artificial conventions of Mannerism, which had ruled art for almost a century, no longer seemed adequate. Caravaggio's novelty was a radical naturalism, which combined close physical observation with a dramatic, even theatrical, use of tenebrism , the shift from light to dark with little intermediate value. He burst upon the Rome art scene in 1600 with the success of his first public commissions. Thereafter he never lacked for commissions or patrons, yet he handled his success atrociously. An early published notice on him, dating from 1604 and describing his lifestyle three years previously, tells how "after a fortnight's work he will swagger about for a month or two with a sword at his side and a servant following him, from one ball-court to the next, ever ready to engage in a fight or an argument, so that it is most awkward to get along with him." In 1606 he killed a young man in a brawl and fled from Rome with a price on his head. In Malta in 1608 he was involved in another brawl, and yet another in Naples in 1609, possibly a deliberate attempt on his life by unidentified enemies. By the next year, after a relatively brief career, he was dead. This painting was done for a private family chapel. It is interesting because Christ is not the center of our attention, Matthew is. Matthew is the figure who is pointing at himself with the black hat. Caravaggio uses lighting to direct our attention to him as well as the sword at the side of the figure whose back is turned towards us. Jesus and St. Peter are on the right hand side of the painting, entering into the room. Look closely at Jesus’s hand: it is a direct copy of the hand of God in Michelangelo’s Creation of Adam . Matthew looks directly at Christ seemingly to ask, “Who? Me?” Matthew was named Levi at that point and was a tax collector. The other figures at the table are his colleagues and they are counting the money they have collected. They are all dressed in 17th century clothing, which is different from the Roman robes Jesus and Peter wear. Why would Caravaggio make that distinction? What purpose does that serve the viewer of the artwork?