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The Sacred by Jacquemart André by Chloé Guennou Francesca Cappelletti, professor of art history who initiated the exhibition in 2015 at the Petit Palais "The Nethergrounds, the of Vice and Misery", a Caravaggio specialist, had the idea of focusing on the Roman years of the master of the dark light and his rivalries with his contemporaries. She then proposed to the Chief Curator of Jacquemart André who accepted the challenge. If Caravaggio revolutionized painting, his production being limited to some sixty paintings and the spectrum retained being narrow from 1593 to 1606, it took all the persuasion of the Parisian institution which possesses a remarkable collection of Italian masterpieces to meet this challenge. The two curators, Francesca Cappelletti and Pierre Curie, obtained exceptional loans to bring together ten Caravaggio originals confronted with twenty- one of his contemporaries: the Cavalier d'Arpin, his master on his arrival in Rome, , , ,... in turn friends or rivals. Caravaggio's bellicose temperament forced him to flee Rome following the murder of his Jeu de Paume partner, Ranuccio Tomassoni. Sentenced to death in absentia, he found refuge with one of his protectors and patrons, Duke Muzio Sforza Colonna in Paliano, in southern Lazio. This eventful life adds to his legend and premature death from exhaustion at the age of 38 on a beach at Porte Ercole in Tuscany, far from the golds of the Roman palaces. Death always shrouded in mystery. Although 3 years of preparation were necessary for a budget of 1.5 million euros financed by Culturespaces, Jacquemart André's cultural operator, the result on Hubert Le Gall's scenography is breathtaking. From the beginning of the tour the tone is set with Judith beheading Holofernes (1598) from Palazzo Barberini in Rome. If this motif was a great success at the end of the Cinquecento, it is because of the masterful interpretation that the Lombard painter made of it. Constructing the stage as in the theatre, he opposes two worlds, Holofernes succumbing and the young heroine accompanied by her old handmaiden. Judith, a pretty courtesan, seems almost absent in the face of this decapitation, her immaculate white blouse, contrasting with the blood spilled and the red of the hanging, proof of this daily life that the master will erect as sacred. Orazio Gentileschi and , brilliant interpreters of the theme, initiate the beginnings of Caravaggio, while , with David and Goliath, sets himself up as a rival. Another major unpublished work is the Lute Player (1595), the only Caravaggio in the of St. Petersburg, commissioned by the Marquis Vincenzo Giustiniani, an important protector. This young man with the languid pause and half-opened shirt throws like an apostrophe to the spectator underlined by the lateral lighting which is the artist's trademark. It is especially in the still life, considered at the time as a minor genre, that the painter distinguished himself, seeking to give "a truthfulness to the objects of nature", flowers, fruits, musical paper and instruments surround the character. 's "La douleur d'Aminte" takes up this motif of the young melancholy singer accompanied by a sumptuous "Still life with a basket of fruit". With "The Young Saint with the Ram" (1602), Caravaggio breaks even further with traditional iconography. The Saint is represented as a mocking teenager embracing with his arms, not a lamb but a horned ram. His willingly lascivious posture suggests a sensuality enhanced by this nudity offered to the viewer. In the same room is echoed the "Saint John the Baptist holding a sheep" by Bartolomeo Manfredi (Louvre Museum) which underlines the extraordinary posterity of this motif among the followers of Caravaggio. In the following section dedicated to his contemporaries and rivals, the Ecce Homo (1605?) of the Genoa Museum has a special place, the result of a competition launched by Massimo Massimi pitting the Lombard against the painters Cigoli and Passignano. Even if Cigoli wins the passion of Caravaggio's Christ, he brings about an unprecedented revolution with this half-body composition where all the light is done on the condemned man's torso, while Pilate, bearded and dressed in black, really takes the spectator as a witness, a very unusual posture. With the "Emmaus Supper" (1606) at the Pinacoteca di Milano a new stylistic step is taken. Caravaggio, on the run after Tomassoni's murder, gives himself up to a more tragic and darker vision of the Pilgrims, as with the "Saint Francis in meditation" (around 1606) from the Cremona Museum, of great psychological density. As if the artist identified with this martyrdom. The last stroke of genius of the course is to offer in the last room an original dialogue between the two penitent Madeleines, the Madeleine known as "Klain" and her twin sister the "Madeleine Gregori", never before exhibited in Europe. Saint or sinner, drunk or asleep, the line reduced to the essential underlines the contradictory feelings experienced by this figure whose ecstasy is underlined by the abandoned curves and the bare shoulder. The former courtesan indulges in a drunkenness that is only mystical by name and prefigures Bernini's saints in ecstasy. Avant-garde, rebellious and tormented, the genius of Caravaggio, although still essential for the future European Caravaggism with representatives such as , José de Ribera, ...continues to influence artists of closer generations, such as with Cindy Sherman who personifies herself as the "sick little Bacchus". Nevertheless, the sulphurous Caravaggio is still misunderstood. It is therefore to the credit of this exhibition to focus on his decisive years in Rome, the bearer of an incredible revolution. 30 Oct 2018 #Musée Jacquemart André #Peinture copyright: Le Caravage

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