Caravaggisti
Encyclopedia
Baroque
The Baroque is a period and the style that used exaggerated motion and clear, easily interpreted detail to produce drama, tension, exuberance, and grandeur in sculpture, painting, literature, dance, and music...
painter Michelangelo Merisi da Caravaggio. His influence on the new Baroque style that eventually emerged from Mannerism
Mannerism
Mannerism is a period of European art that emerged from the later years of the Italian High Renaissance around 1520. It lasted until about 1580 in Italy, when a more Baroque style began to replace it, but Northern Mannerism continued into the early 17th century throughout much of Europe...
was profound. Caravaggio never established a workshop as most other painters did, and thus had no school to spread his techniques. Nor did he ever set out his underlying philosophical approach to art, the psychological realism which can only be deduced from his surviving work. But it can be seen directly or indirectly in the work of Rubens
Rubens
Rubens is often used to refer to Peter Paul Rubens , the Flemish artist.Rubens may also refer to:- People :Family name* Paul Rubens Rubens is often used to refer to Peter Paul Rubens (1577-1640), the Flemish artist.Rubens may also refer to:- People :Family name* Paul Rubens (composer) Rubens is...
, Jusepe de Ribera, Bernini, and Rembrandt. Famous while he lived, Caravaggio himself was forgotten almost immediately after his death. Many of his paintings were reascribed to his followers, such as the The Taking of Christ, which was attributed to Honthorst until 1990. It was only in the 20th century that his importance to the development of Western art was rediscovered. In the 1920s Roberto Longhi
Fondazione Roberto Longhi
Fondazione Roberto Longhi, Via Benedetto Fortini, Florence, is an institute established by Italian scholar Roberto Longhi, who in 1971 left his library, photo library and collection of art "for the benefit of future generations". The headquarters is the villa "Il Tasso" which Longhi acquired in 1939...
once more placed him in the European tradition: "Ribera, Vermeer, La Tour and Rembrandt could never have existed without him. And the art of Delacroix
Eugène Delacroix
Ferdinand Victor Eugène Delacroix was a French Romantic artist regarded from the outset of his career as the leader of the French Romantic school...
, Courbet
Gustave Courbet
Jean Désiré Gustave Courbet was a French painter who led the Realist movement in 19th-century French painting. The Realist movement bridged the Romantic movement , with the Barbizon School and the Impressionists...
and Manet
Édouard Manet
Édouard Manet was a French painter. One of the first 19th-century artists to approach modern-life subjects, he was a pivotal figure in the transition from Realism to Impressionism....
would have been utterly different". The influential Bernard Berenson
Bernard Berenson
Bernard Berenson was an American art historian specializing in the Renaissance. He was a major figure in pioneering art attribution and therefore establishing the market for paintings by the "Old Masters".-Personal life:...
stated: "With the exception of Michelangelo
Michelangelo
Michelangelo di Lodovico Buonarroti Simoni , commonly known as Michelangelo, was an Italian Renaissance painter, sculptor, architect, poet, and engineer who exerted an unparalleled influence on the development of Western art...
, no other Italian painter exercised so great an influence."
Rome
At the height of his popularity in RomeRome
Rome is the capital of Italy and the country's largest and most populated city and comune, with over 2.7 million residents in . The city is located in the central-western portion of the Italian Peninsula, on the Tiber River within the Lazio region of Italy.Rome's history spans two and a half...
during the late 1590s and early 17th century, Caravaggios dramatic new style influenced many of his peers in the Roman art world. The first Caravaggisti included Mario Minniti
Mario Minniti
Mario Minniti was an Italian artist active in Sicily after 1606.Born in Syracuse, Sicily, he arrived in Rome in 1593, where he became the friend, collaborator and model of the key Baroque painter Michelangelo Merisi da Caravaggio...
, Giovanni Baglione
Giovanni Baglione
Giovanni Baglione was an Italian Late Mannerist and Early Baroque painter and art historian. He is best remembered for his acrimonious involvement with the artist Caravaggio and his writings concerning the other Roman artists of his time.-Early life:A pupil of Francesco Morelli, he worked mainly...
(although his Caravaggio phase was short-lived), Leonello Spada
Leonello Spada
Leonello Spada was an Italian painter of the Baroque period, active in Rome and his native city of Bologna, where he became known as one of the followers of Caravaggio.-Biography:...
and Orazio Gentileschi
Orazio Gentileschi
Orazio Lomi Gentileschi was an Italian Baroque painter, one of more important painters influenced by Caravaggio...
. In the next generation there were Carlo Saraceni
Carlo Saraceni
Carlo Saraceni was an Italian early-Baroque painter, whose reputation as a "first-class painter of the second rank" was improved with the publication of a modern monograph in 1968....
, Bartolomeo Manfredi
Bartolomeo Manfredi
Bartolomeo Manfredi was an Italian painter, a leading member of the Caravaggisti of the early 17th century.Manfredi was born in Ostiano, near Cremona...
and Orazio Borgianni
Orazio Borgianni
Orazio Borgianni was an Italian painter and etcher of the Mannerist and early-baroque periods. He was the stepbrother of the sculptor and architect Giulio Lasso....
. Gentileschi, despite being considerably older, was the only one of these artists to live much beyond 1620, and ended up as court painter to Charles I of England
Charles I of England
Charles I was King of England, King of Scotland, and King of Ireland from 27 March 1625 until his execution in 1649. Charles engaged in a struggle for power with the Parliament of England, attempting to obtain royal revenue whilst Parliament sought to curb his Royal prerogative which Charles...
. His daughter Artemisia Gentileschi
Artemisia Gentileschi
Artemisia Gentileschi was an Italian Early Baroque painter, today considered one of the most accomplished painters in the generation influenced by Caravaggio...
was also close to Caravaggio, and one of the most gifted of the movement. Yet in Rome and in Italy it was not Caravaggio, but the influence of Annibale Carracci
Annibale Carracci
Annibale Carracci was an Italian Baroque painter.-Early career:Annibale Carracci was born in Bologna, and in all likelihood first apprenticed within his family...
, blending elements from the High Renaissance
High Renaissance
The expression High Renaissance, in art history, is a periodizing convention used to denote the apogee of the visual arts in the Italian Renaissance...
and Lombard
Lombardy
Lombardy is one of the 20 regions of Italy. The capital is Milan. One-sixth of Italy's population lives in Lombardy and about one fifth of Italy's GDP is produced in this region, making it the most populous and richest region in the country and one of the richest in the whole of Europe...
realism, which ultimately triumphed.
Naples
In May of 1606 after the killing of Ranuccio Tomassoni, Caravaggio fled to NaplesNaples
Naples is a city in Southern Italy, situated on the country's west coast by the Gulf of Naples. Lying between two notable volcanic regions, Mount Vesuvius and the Phlegraean Fields, it is the capital of the region of Campania and of the province of Naples...
with a death sentence on his head. While there he completed several commissions, two major ones being the Madonna of the Rosary
Madonna of the Rosary (Caravaggio)
The Madonna of the Rosary is a painting finished in 1607 by the Italian Baroque painter Caravaggio. It is housed in the Kunsthistorisches Museum of Vienna....
, and The Seven Works of Mercy
The Seven Works of Mercy (Caravaggio)
The Seven Works of Mercy , also known as The Seven Acts of Mercy, is an oil painting by Italian painter Caravaggio, circa 1607. It is housed in the church of Pio Monte della Misericordia in Naples...
. His work had a profound effect on the local artists and his brief stay in Naples produced a notable school of Neapolitan Caravaggisti, including Battistello Caracciolo
Battistello Caracciolo
Giovanni Battista Caracciolo was an Italian artist and important Neapolitan follower of Caravaggio....
, Bernardo Cavallino
Bernardo Cavallino
Bernardo Cavallino was an Italian painter of the Baroque period, working in Naples.Born in Naples, he likely died during the plague epidemic in 1656. While his paintings are some of the more stunningly expressive works emerging from the Neapolitan artists of his day, little is known about the...
, Carlo Sellitto
Carlo Sellitto
Carlo Sellitto was an Italian painter of the Baroque period.One of the most gifted followers of Michelangelo Merisi da Caravaggio , Sellitto played an important role in the spread of Caravaggism to Naples and in the development away from Late Mannerism to a greater naturalism.The son of a painter...
and Massimo Stanzione
Massimo Stanzione
Massimo Stanzione was an Italian Baroque painter, mainly active in Naples.Massimo Stanzione was an Italian Baroque painter. Born in Naples in 1586, Massimo was greatly influenced by Michelangelo Merisi da Caravaggio, but what earned him the nickname of The Neapolitan Guido Reni was his...
. The Caravaggisti movement there ended with a terrible outbreak of plague in 1656, but at the time Naples was a possession of Spain and the influence of Caravaggism had already spread there.
Utrecht
In the early 17th century Catholic artists from the NetherlandsNetherlands
The Netherlands is a constituent country of the Kingdom of the Netherlands, located mainly in North-West Europe and with several islands in the Caribbean. Mainland Netherlands borders the North Sea to the north and west, Belgium to the south, and Germany to the east, and shares maritime borders...
travelled to Rome as students and were profoundly influenced by the work of Caravaggio. On their return to the north this group, known as the "Utrecht Caravaggisti", had a short-lived but influential flowering in the 1620s among painters like Hendrick ter Brugghen
Hendrick ter Brugghen
Hendrick Jansz ter Brugghen was a Dutch painter, and a leading member of the Dutch followers of Caravaggio — the so-called Dutch Caravaggisti.- Biography :...
, Gerrit van Honthorst, Andries Both
Andries Both
Andries Both , was a Dutch Golden Age genre painter, one of the bamboccianti, and brother of Jan Dirksz Both.Both was born in Utrecht, the son of a glass painter. He studied under Abraham Bloemaert. According to Joachim von Sandrart Andries and his brother Jan cooperated on the paintings, with Jan...
and Dirck van Baburen
Dirck van Baburen
Dirck Jaspersz. van Baburen was a Dutch painter associated with the Utrecht Caravaggisti.-Biography:Dirck van Baburen was probably born in Wijk bij Duurstede, but his family moved to Utrecht when he was still young. He was also known as Teodoer van Baburen and Theodor Baburen...
. The brief flourishing of Utrecht Caravaggism ended around 1630, when major artists had either died, as in the case of Baburen and Terbrugghen, or had changed style, like Honthorst's shift to portraiture
Portrait painting
Portrait painting is a genre in painting, where the intent is to depict the visual appearance of the subject. Beside human beings, animals, pets and even inanimate objects can be chosen as the subject for a portrait...
and history scenes informed by the Flemish
Flemish Baroque painting
Flemish Baroque painting is the art produced in the Southern Netherlands between about 1585, when the Dutch Republic was split from the Habsburg Spain regions to the south by the recapturing of Antwerp by the Spanish, until about 1700, when Habsburg authority ended with the death of King Charles II...
tendencies popularized by Rubens and his followers. In the following generation the effects of Caravaggio, although attenuated, are to be seen in the work of Vermeer, Rembrandt, and Gerrit Dou's "niche paintings".
Flemish
During his 1600 trip to Italy, Peter Paul Rubens was also influenced by the highly naturalistic paintings of CaravaggioCaravaggio
Michelangelo Merisi da Caravaggio was an Italian artist active in Rome, Naples, Malta, and Sicily between 1593 and 1610. His paintings, which combine a realistic observation of the human state, both physical and emotional, with a dramatic use of lighting, had a formative influence on the Baroque...
. He made a copy of the Entombment of Christ
The Entombment of Christ (Caravaggio)
The Entombment of Christ is a painting by Michelangelo Merisi da Caravaggio. It was painted for Santa Maria in Vallicella, a church built for the Oratory of Saint Philip Neri, and adjacent to the buildings of the order...
, recommended that his patron, the Duke of Mantua, purchase The Death of the Virgin
Death of the Virgin (Caravaggio)
The Death of the Virgin is a painting completed by the Italian Baroque master Caravaggio. It is a near contemporary with the Madonna with Saint Anne now at the Galleria Borghese...
(Louvre
Louvre
The Musée du Louvre – in English, the Louvre Museum or simply the Louvre – is one of the world's largest museums, the most visited art museum in the world and a historic monument. A central landmark of Paris, it is located on the Right Bank of the Seine in the 1st arrondissement...
), and was instrumental in the acquisition of The Madonna of the Rosary
Madonna of the Rosary (Caravaggio)
The Madonna of the Rosary is a painting finished in 1607 by the Italian Baroque painter Caravaggio. It is housed in the Kunsthistorisches Museum of Vienna....
(Kunsthistorisches Museum, Vienna
Kunsthistorisches Museum
The Kunsthistorisches Museum is an art museum in Vienna, Austria. Housed in its festive palatial building on Ringstraße, it is crowned with an octagonal dome...
) for the Dominican church in Antwerp. Other Flemish artists of the early 17th century also show signs of direct exposure to Caravaggios work, including Adam de Coster
Adam de Coster
Adam de Coster was a Flemish Baroque painter working under the influence of Caravaggism.-Biography:Originally from Mechelen, he is listed in Antwerp's guild of St. Luke as a master in 1607–1608...
, Theodoor Rombouts
Theodoor Rombouts
Theodoor Rombouts was a Flemish Baroque painter specializing in Caravaggesque genre scenes of card players and musicians.-Biography:...
and Gerard Seghers
Gerard Seghers
Gerard Seghers , also Zegers, was a Flemish Baroque painter and one of the leading Caravaggisti in the Southern Netherlands.-Biography:...
.
French
One of the first FrenchFrance
The French Republic , The French Republic , The French Republic , (commonly known as France , is a unitary semi-presidential republic in Western Europe with several overseas territories and islands located on other continents and in the Indian, Pacific, and Atlantic oceans. Metropolitan France...
artists to studio in Rome during the caravaggio years was Jean LeClerc
Jean LeClerc (painter)
Jean LeClerc was a 17th century painter from the Duchy of Lorraine. His style was Baroque, or more specifically "tenebrist". Only six authenticated paintings remain of Leclerc’s work, but numerous etchings and engravings have survived.Leclerc was born and died at Nancy. He studied with the...
, who studied under Saraceni during the early 17th century. Simon Vouet
Simon Vouet
Simon Vouet was a French painter and draftsman, who today is perhaps best remembered for helping to introduce the Italian Baroque style of painting to France.-Life:...
spent an extensive period of time in Italy, from 1613 to 1627. His patrons included the Barberini family, Cassiano dal Pozzo
Cassiano dal Pozzo
Cassiano dal Pozzo was an Italian scholar and patron of arts. The secretary of Cardinal Francesco Barberini, he was an antiquary in the classicizing circle of Rome, and a long-term friend and patron of Nicolas Poussin, whom he supported from his earliest arrival in Rome: Poussin in a letter...
, Paolo Giordano Orsini
Paolo Giordano Orsini
Paolo Giordano Orsini may refer to two members of the Italian Orsini family:*Paolo Giordano I Orsini , first duke of Bracciano*Paolo Giordano II Orsini...
and Vincenzo Giustiniani
Vincenzo Giustiniani
thumb|upright|Vincenzo Giustiniani in a portrait by [[Nicolas Régnier]] Marchese Vincenzo Giustiniani was an aristocratic Italian banker, art collector and intellectual of the late 16th and early 17th centuries, known today largely for the Giustiniani art collection, assembled at Palazzo...
. He also visited other parts of Italy: Venice
Venice
Venice is a city in northern Italy which is renowned for the beauty of its setting, its architecture and its artworks. It is the capital of the Veneto region...
; Bologna
Bologna
Bologna is the capital city of Emilia-Romagna, in the Po Valley of Northern Italy. The city lies between the Po River and the Apennine Mountains, more specifically, between the Reno River and the Savena River. Bologna is a lively and cosmopolitan Italian college city, with spectacular history,...
, (where the Carracci family
Annibale Carracci
Annibale Carracci was an Italian Baroque painter.-Early career:Annibale Carracci was born in Bologna, and in all likelihood first apprenticed within his family...
had their academy); Genoa
Genoa
Genoa |Ligurian]] Zena ; Latin and, archaically, English Genua) is a city and an important seaport in northern Italy, the capital of the Province of Genoa and of the region of Liguria....
, (where from 1620 to 1622, he worked for the Doria princes
Doria
Doria, originally de Auria , meaning "the sons of Auria", and then de Oria or d'Oria, is the name of an old and extremely wealthy Genoese family who played a major role in the history of the Republic of Genoa and in Italy, from the 12th century to the 16th century.-Origins:According to legend, a...
); and Naples. He absorbed what he saw and distilled it in his painting: Caravaggio's dramatic lighting; Italian Mannerism; Paolo Veronese
Paolo Veronese
Paolo Veronese was an Italian painter of the Renaissance in Venice, famous for paintings such as The Wedding at Cana and The Feast in the House of Levi...
's color and di sotto in su or foreshortened perspective; and the art of the Carracci
Annibale Carracci
Annibale Carracci was an Italian Baroque painter.-Early career:Annibale Carracci was born in Bologna, and in all likelihood first apprenticed within his family...
, Guercino, Lanfranco
Lanfranco
Lanfranco may refer to:* Lanfranco, master-builder of the Modena Cathedral* Guido Lanfranc of Milan , professor of Surgery.* Giovanni Lanfranco , Italian painter....
and Guido Reni
Guido Reni
Guido Reni was an Italian painter of high-Baroque style.-Biography:Born in Bologna into a family of musicians, Guido Reni was the son of Daniele Reni and Ginevra de’ Pozzi. As a child of nine, he was apprenticed under the Bolognese studio of Denis Calvaert. Soon after, he was joined in that...
. Vouet's success in Rome led to his election as president of the Accademia di San Luca
Accademia di San Luca
The Accademia di San Luca, was founded in 1577 as an association of artists in Rome, under the directorship of Federico Zuccari, with the purpose of elevating the work of "artists", which included painters, sculptors and architects, above that of mere craftsmen. Other founders included Girolamo...
in 1624. Despite his success in Rome, Vouet returned to France in 1627. Vouet's new style was distinctly Italian, importing the Italian Baroque style into France. Other French artists enamored by the new style included Valentin de Boulogne
Valentin de Boulogne
Valentin de Boulogne , sometimes referred to as Le Valentin, was a French painter.-Origins:Valentin was born in Coulommiers, France, where he was baptised in the parish of Saint-Denys on January 3, 1591, making 1590 his likely year of birth...
, who was living in Rome by 1620, and studied under Vouet and later Boulognes pupil Nicolas Tournier
Nicolas Tournier
Nicolas Tournier was a French Baroque painter.Born in Montbéliard, he followed the profession of his father, André Tournier, "a Protestant painter from Besançon". Little is known of his life before his arrival in Rome, where he worked between 1619 and 1626, and where he was influenced by the work...
.
Georges de La Tour
Georges de La Tour
Georges de La Tour was a French Baroque painter, who spent most of his working life in the Duchy of Lorraine, which was temporarily absorbed into France between 1641 and 1648...
is assumed to have travelled either to Italy or the Netherlands early in his career. His paintings reflect the influence of Caravaggio, but this probably reached him through the Dutch Caravaggisti and other Northern (French and Dutch) contemporaries. In particular, La Tour is often compared to the Hendrick Terbrugghen.
Spanish
Francisco RibaltaFrancisco Ribalta
Francesc Ribalta , also known as Francisco Ribaltá or de Ribalta, was a Spanish painter of the Baroque period, mostly of religious subjects.He was born in Solsona, Lleida...
became among the first followers in Spain
Spanish Golden Age
The Spanish Golden Age is a period of flourishing in arts and literature in Spain, coinciding with the political rise and decline of the Spanish Habsburg dynasty. El Siglo de Oro does not imply precise dates and is usually considered to have lasted longer than an actual century...
of the tenebrist
Tenebrism
Tenebrism, from the Italian tenebroso , is a style of painting using very pronounced chiaroscuro, where there are violent contrasts of light and dark, and darkness becomes a dominating feature of the image...
style. It is unclear if he directly visited either Rome
Rome
Rome is the capital of Italy and the country's largest and most populated city and comune, with over 2.7 million residents in . The city is located in the central-western portion of the Italian Peninsula, on the Tiber River within the Lazio region of Italy.Rome's history spans two and a half...
or Naples
Naples
Naples is a city in Southern Italy, situated on the country's west coast by the Gulf of Naples. Lying between two notable volcanic regions, Mount Vesuvius and the Phlegraean Fields, it is the capital of the region of Campania and of the province of Naples...
, where Caravaggio's style had many adherents, although through its Naples connection Spain was probably already exposed to Caravaggisim by the early 17th century. His son Juan Ribalta
Juan Ribalta
Juan Ribalta was a Spanish painter of the Baroque period. He was born and died in Valencia. His father, Francisco Ribalta, was a famous painter, active in the style of Caravaggio. Juan's works and style are similar to that of his father....
, Vicente Castelló and Jusepe de Ribera are said to have been his pupils, although it is entirely possible that Ribera acquired his tenebrism when he moved to Italy. The style garnered a number of adherents in Spain, and was to influence the Baroque or Golden Age
Golden Age
The term Golden Age comes from Greek mythology and legend and refers to the first in a sequence of four or five Ages of Man, in which the Golden Age is first, followed in sequence, by the Silver, Bronze, and Iron Ages, and then the present, a period of decline...
Spanish painters, especially Zurbarán, Velázquez
Diego Velázquez
Diego Rodríguez de Silva y Velázquez was a Spanish painter who was the leading artist in the court of King Philip IV. He was an individualistic artist of the contemporary Baroque period, important as a portrait artist...
and Murillo
Bartolomé Estéban Murillo
Bartolomé Esteban Murillo was a Spanish Baroque painter. Although he is best known for his religious works, Murillo also produced a considerable number of paintings of contemporary women and children...
. Even the art of still life in Spain, the bodegón
Bodegón
The term bodega in Spanish can mean "pantry", "tavern", or "wine cellar". The derivative term bodegón is an augmentative that refers to a large bodega, usually in a derogatory fashion...
was often painted in a similar stark and austere style.