San giovanni decollato caravaggio biography full

The passion and intensity of Caravaggio's paintings was mirrored by his violent and turbulent lifestyle. Despite countless run-ins with the law, and being implicated in more than one murder, he still found it within himself to create a body of strikingly innovative work. Caravaggio pioneered the use of sharp contrasts in lighting to maximize dramatic effect, and reimagined religious figures by dressing them in modern clothes, and by placing them in modern interiors.

Even though he only lived until the age of 38, Caravaggio had a profound influence on later art movements, most notably Baroque art and 19 th -century Realism. By the age of 21, Caravaggio had lost his entire family to the bubonic plague, and throughout his short life, his violent temper got him into heaps of trouble, forcing him to flee from city to city.

Caravaggio executed this self-portrait whilst in the employment of the mural painter, Giuseppe Cesari.

Caravaggio Keith Sciberras,David M.

The painting's carefully worked still life elements clearly demonstrate the influence of Cesari's teachings. The painting is one of a group of the artist's early self-portraits that seems to have been painted with the aid of a convex mirror, a contention supported by the figure's awkward pose, as if turned to ensure better visibility in the mirror surface.

The art historian Roberto Longhi believed that the artist painted it after he was discharged from the hospital, following an incident in which he was kicked by a horse and sustained severe injuries. Alternatively, the image's greenish coloration might simply be ascribed to a night-time setting appropriate for the bacchanalia festival of Bacchus which was about to ensue.

The figure of Bacchus was a fitting alter-ego for Caravaggio as he was the deity of wine, theater, ritualized displays of ecstasy, and was synonymous with inspiration and destruction. The portrait differs, however, from traditional representations of Bacchus where he is depicted in the midst of unbridled celebration, often in a verdant landscape.

Instead, Caravaggio's image adheres to the conventions of many of the artist's other works, presenting the mythological figure in a sparse interior. American photographer Cindy Sherman did much to raise the profile of the painting amongst contemporary art lovers when she reinterpreted it as part of her History Portraits —90 series.

Untitled after Caravaggio's Bacchus was one of a series of photographic portraits in which Sherman assumed the role of male figures borrowed from Renaissance, Baroque, Rococo, and Neoclassical portraiture. Here, a young boy, an example of the tousled, curly-haired youth who populated many of Caravaggio's early secular pieces, recoils in pain and surprise after having reached for one of the fruits on the table only to be bitten by a lizard, concealed among the pile of cherries.

On the table, Caravaggio demonstrates his skill in rendering the play of light over and through different textures.