Michelangelo Merisi (Caravaggio) Was Born in Milan in 1571 But, As Far As Art History Is Concerned, He Was Born in Rome Shortly After He Turned Twenty

Home , Battistello Caracciolo, Caravaggio, Giovanni Battista Moroni, Moretto da Brescia, Orazio Gentileschi, Tanzio da Varallo

Before and after Caravaggi o Directions for an itinerary in the Pinacoteca

1. Simone Peterzano Venus and Cupid with Two Satyrs in a Landscape

1 3 2. Giovan Paolo Lomazzo 2 Self-Portrait as Abbot of the Academy of Val de Bregn

Michelangelo Merisi (Caravaggio) was born in Milan in 1571 but, as far as art history is concerned, he was born in Rome shortly after he turned twenty. In fact, no painting of his is known prior to his arrival in the capital. But his education in Lombardy was fundamental to his forma - tion, as was understood and explained by the art historian 3. Vincenzo Campi Roberto Longhi in the early decades of the twentieth century. The Fruit Seller Several of the paintings conserved at Brera assist in explaining which figurative experiences that Caravaggio observed in Lombardy attracted him and helped to develop his notion of painting, and which works struck him so forcefully as to remain part of his compositional baggage.

Among those PAInteRS thAt weRe ConteMPoRARy with him, Simone Peterzano [1] is naturally important, whose workshop he entered at the age of thirteen. It was from Peterzano that he learnt to describe form carefully without the aid of design; also dry chromatic variations, like those in the drape on which Venus lies. 4. Moretto da Brescia Similarly, the intellectualistic experimentation of Giovan Paolo Saint Francis of Assisi Lomazzo [2], painter, theoretician and poet, left its mark. the three-quarter pose with the foreshortened shoulder, direct gaze, and the complexity of pictorial meanings struck Caravaggio, which he echoed in the Young Sick Bacchus (Galleria Borghese, Rome). And finally the Campi brothers, in particular Vincenzo [3], from whom he absorbed the careful, punctilious description of reality, often imbued with allegorical and moralizing mea - nings, as occurs in the four canvases in Room XVIII, which, ac - 5. Lorenzo Lotto cording to some critics, represent the Four Elements . Assumption of the Virgin Caravaggio also learnt much from several ARtIStS fRoM PReVIouS GeneRAtIonS . It cannot be said with certainty that the painter saw the paintings now in Brera, but through these we are able to understand with what type of painting Caravaggio felt an affinity. In the canvases of Moretto [4], Lorenzo Lotto [5] and Giovanni Battista Moroni [6], hung in Room XIV, we see non-idealized sacred ﬁgures who are normal in appearance and gesture; a moving light that builds the design-free volumes through the use of shadow, and reveals even unimportant details; and an intimate interpretation of the sacred episode. these are 6. Giovanni Battista Moroni elements that Caravaggio elaborated upon and studied in depth. Assumption of the Virgin

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7. orazio Gentileschi The Martyrs Valerian, Tiburtius and Cecilia Visited by an Angel

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Following Caravaggio obliged to flee from Rome in 1606, Caravaggio went to naples, Malta and Sicily. In all these places he aroused reactions, both in favour and against, but his direct depiction of reality – which was primarily rendered through the use of shadow and light – won the admiration of many painters, beginning in the cities where he stayed, and gave rise to a proper fashion. through 8. Battistello Caracciolo artists of different generations, Rooms XXIX and XXX offer a Christ and the Samaritan Woman at the Well brief anthology of the reactions to his new approach to painting.

Orazio Gentileschi [7], who was a friend of Caravaggio from his Roman years and almost the same age, makes use of well defined and very elegant Caravaggesque motifs in his paintings (for example, the dark curtain that cuts across the scene, the ‘true’ angel that bears the palm of martyrdom), but above all the optical clarity with which the images are rendered (the wings of the angel, the face and garments of the saint in the foreground), 9. Jusepe de Ribera and the illumination that creates dark but transparent shadows. Saint Jerome in Meditation

Battistello Caracciolo [8] only knew Caravaggio’s mature phase indirectly. In his painting the strong contrasts between shadow and light, and the non-idealized figures coexist with a clean and enamelled application of the paint.

Jusepe de Ribera [9], who was in Rome in 1613 and imme - diately afterwards in naples, long made use of dark, dramatic tones, but he also took enormous care over naturalistic details, even the most contingent, with a dedication to detail that is not 10-11 . Mattia Preti, Saint Peter Paying the Tribute Money – to be found in Caravaggio. A Mother Entrusting Her Children to Christ the younger Mattia Preti [10-11 ] was happy with external elements, like the general penumbra shot through by dazzling lights or the contemporary setting of the Gospel story, which he accomplished by dressing a few characters in seventeenth- century dress.

Tanzio da Varallo [12-13 ] from Valsesia in Piemonte was in Rome in 1600. the extent to which the new Caravaggesque use of light was important to him can be seen in portraits that he executed after his return to Lombardy. here he gives an acute characterization of the newly married couple, and the 12-13 . tanzio da Varallo light defines their clothes and features with similar precision. Portrait of a Young Man – Portrait of a Lady

EDITED BY SErvIzI EDucaTIvI OF THE PInacOTEca DI BrEra. TEXTS: EmanuEla DaFFra, PaOla STraDa. TranSlaTIOnS: TImOTHY STrOuD. PaGE laYOuT: carlO BaSSanInI. mIlanO, 2015. 2/2