DRAMA & DEVOTION IN BAROQUE ROME
Partial support for the exhibitions and programs at the Georgia Museum of Art is provided by the Georgia Council for the Arts through appropriations of the Georgia General Assembly. The council is a partner agency of the National Endowment for the Arts. Individuals, foundations and corporations provide additional museum support through their gifts to the University of Georgia Foundation.
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R ome has long been a key desti- nation for artists. At the beginning of the seventeenth century, painters from across Europe flocked to the Eternal City to see the stylistic revolution caused by Michelangelo Merisi da Caravaggio (1571–1610). Caravaggio only worked for about fifteen years and produced roughly seventy paintings, with few examples in Ameri- can collections. Nonetheless, he remains one of the most influential figures in Western art. The works in this focused exhibition, all from the Museum and Gallery at Bob Jones University, celebrate how he shaped the Italian Baroque and galvanized numerous followers. Caravaggio settled in Rome around 1595. At the time, Pope Clement VIII (1592–1605) was promoting the building of new churches and the renovation of old ones as symbols of a flourishing Catholic faith. Nearly two thousand artists com- peted to fulfill this ambitious program. Caravaggio’s first monumental and public commission, The Calling of Saint Matthew , for the Contarelli Chapel in S. Luigi dei Francesi, revealed his trademark style: stark contrast of light and dark, vigorous
modeling, bare background, unsettling realism, use of live models, and a dramatic sense of staging.This new way of painting left few viewers unmoved. It also earned Caravaggio the attention of prestigious patrons and collectors, including Cardinal del Monte and Cardinal Maffeo Barberini, the future Pope Urban VIII (1623–44). Although his style was considered too “realistic”—some benefactors rejected his paintings upon delivery—local and foreign artists copied it, with great success on the art market. Caravaggio’s religious paintings em- phasized the emotional state of the people they pictured and inspired introspection and devotion. In contrast, his secular compositions of musicians, cardsharps, and fortune tellers present a world of guile and duplicity in a theatrical and playful manner. Caravaggio fled Rome in 1606, after killing a young man named Ranuccio Tomassoni under unclear circumstances. He traveled to Naples, Malta, and Sicily, where he continued to paint and find trouble. In 1610, Caravaggio appealed to Pope Paul V (1605–21) for a pardon so that he could return to Rome. He boarded a ship in Naples with paintings as a thank- you gift. Near his final destination, he was arrested as his name was on a wanted list. When he was released, he found that the
ship had continued on to Porto Ercole with all of his possessions on board. Determined to recover them, he made his own way to the Tuscan city, perhaps on foot, if we presume that he had purchased his freedom with all the money he had. Exhausted and weakened, he learned that the ship had already set sail back to Naples. This last blow may have proved fatal; he is believed to have died of malaria on July 18. The abandoned paintings caused people to fight over their ownership—another testament to the artist’s enduring appeal. The most famous painter in Italy during his lifetime, Caravaggio’s turbulent life of scandal, incarceration, and murder have only added to his larger-than-life per- sonality and oeuvre. Even if some of the stories passed down contain only grains of truth, two things are certain: Caravaggio did not lack for ambition, and his influ- ence on the art community was stunning. This exhibition presents works by some of the many artists who measured themselves against his virtuosity. –N e lda D ami ano Pierre Daura Curator of European Art Georgia Museum of Art
Michelangelo Merisi da Caravaggio, The Calling of Saint Matthew (1599–1600). Oil on canvas, 126 ₃ ⁄4 x 133 ₇ ⁄8 inches. Contarelli Chapel, S. Luigi dei Francesi, Rome.
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