fruit basket Author: Caravaggio
Date :1597-98
Museum: Pinacoteca Ambrosiana
Features: 46 x 64.5 cm.
Material: Oil on canvas
Style: Italian Baroque This basket of fruit is traditionally considered the first still life of Western painting. Still life is a genre that was inaugurated in the late sixteenth and early seventeenth centuries in the "botteghe" or centroitalianos paint shop, which has been referred to as "still life". Caravaggio was one of the first, if not the first to employ this kind to symbolize Christian allegories or moral. This significance deep in what appears to be a simple basket with seasonal fruits can be traced by analyzing the fruits and leaves are painted, by the way, with extraordinary expertise, apples, pears, figs, quinces and grapes, all of which are fruits of late summer before it stops living with the onset of winter, are a symbol of the holiday collection and the sweetness obtained after long years of work. In addition, the artist skillfully combines lush fruit, ripe, which are advertised as sweet as honey, along with other fruits withered, full of spots, that predict the decay and death. The same applies to the leaves, among which are green and varnished with other wrinkled, yellow and holes filled with parasites. The painting has a bright yellow background, very clear, which only made the author in the early years of their production.
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Caravaggio. Michelangelo Amerighi
Nationality: Italy
Caravaggio h. 1571 - 1610
Port'Hercole
Painter Style: Baroque Italian
School: Naturalism gloomy, Italian School
• Gallery Michelangelo Merisi was born in early autumn of 1571 (the year of the Battle of Lepanto between the fleet of Philip II and the Holy League against the Turks, in battle he lost his arm Miguel de Cervantes) Caravaggio. His father was a senior official of the court of Caravaggio, a town where the family was originally Merisi. Fermo Merisi, the parent, the state took care of various buildings of the powerful Francesco I Sforza, who was also a confidant. It appears that his position was similar to that of master builder, with some knowledge of architecture. In Milan they were surprised by a plague epidemic in 1576, which ended with the father and forced the family to flee to Caravaggio again. Caravaggio was a village belonging to the County Bergamasco, in Lombardy. This will mark the type of Michelangelo painting, as seen in its formative years as an artist. The painter met through her father's guards important families in Italy at the moment, which constituted a court of scholars and thinkers to come to humanism and the Catholic Reformation. These were the Sforza family, the Colonna, Marquis of Caravaggio, the Borromeo (relatives of potatoes and San Carlo Borromeo) and Doria. Many important people in these lineages would become protectors of Caravaggio in Rome and his career in exile. In 1584 Caravaggio returned on his own to Milan to enter as an apprentice of the painter Simon Peterzano. This was one of those most appreciated painters San Carlo Borromeo and thanks to him, Caravaggio knew the postulates of the Reformation and the end Trent Mannerist style. Peterzano was considered a disciple of Titian's painting the young Caravaggio knew how to transmit pictorial values \u200b\u200bthat meet certain Venetian tradition and cabbage, such as the color and sensuality of Venice and Lombardy luminism realistic. Caravaggio did not join the late-Mannerist precepts of his teacher, but learned how to handle light, color and sense of reality. The same year of his contract with Peterzano published the famous treatise on painting Lomazzo, another famous painter Peterzano style. It proposes that there should be some rules applied to painting, drawn from the great art of the Renaissance. Caravaggio never accepted this, considering that the true model for the art was the Renaissance and classical statuary, but nature itself. Within this thought, Michelangelo considered the same height as a table of flowers or fruits that one on biblical stories, which broke with the existing hierarchy of issues so far. Caravaggio was one of the first to establish the dead as an autonomous genre nature and value. At the same time, the treaty considered Lomazzo was not only beautiful, but different ways of dealing with beauty, something that the young artist took communion itself. It also established other rules, common to all treaties painting of the time. The most important were the presence of the psychology of the author in his work, maintaining strict propriety and desirability of "motorcycle." The decorum is the rule that only those chosen to be represented elements befitting the dignity of the subject, for example, you can not paint Christ dressed as a merchant, but as a divine person, the saints must take their attributes sacred, and so on. Caravaggio constantly violated the principle of decorum, or well interpreted in its own way, leading to hatred and love for his painting. The "moto" is the internal movement of the figures, which reflected the passions and the psychology of them. Caravaggio used this standard to pose their characters amazing attitudes, which immediately attracted the attention of the viewer. The lessons were read in the treaties of the late sixteenth century Caravaggio also could be found in the works of painters such as the Campi brothers, Moretto, Moroni or Zuccaro. In Spain, for the same years, was working in a very personal El Greco and Mannerism. Installed in Milan, between 1589 and 1592 the situation becomes complicated for him: his ailing mother and he becomes involved in a crime of aggression which leads him to jail. To avoid prison, the painter sold much of the possessions of the family. Divided the profits with his younger brother and the little profit left for Rome to prosper in his career as a painter. Rome had just enjoy the action planning and renovating of Pope Sixtus V, who had happened in those years Aldobrandini Clement VIII. The intellectual climate was much influenced by the reform of the Council of Trent and humanistic recovery promoted by Sixtus V. Caravaggio stayed at first with Cardinal Pandolfo Pucci di Recanati. Jokingly, Caravaggio remembers him as "Bishop salad" because that was the only meal they gave him. Apart from the anecdote, Cardinal Pucci put him in touch with family Aldobrandini. Contacts continued to Caravaggio with subsequent relationships: working in the Grammatica della Antiveduto workshop, where he was half figures boxes. Later he worked for the Cavaliere d'Arpino, powerful figure who provided some of its largest customers. Caravaggio's early works are confused with those of Knight, it seems that he learned how to make still life and fruit. Meanwhile, the picturesque was associated with Prospero Orsi, also called Prosperino delle Grutesche for its decorative paints. Prospero was the brother Aurelio Orsi, a member of the Accademia degli Insensati, a revolutionary answer to the traditional painting academies. There were others, such as the Accademia delle Belli Humori, and functioned as meeting places for artists and poets too elitist and introduced to the concept (a collection of meanings in a deceptively simple image.) At this point Caravaggio met a character who would be crucial in his career, Cardinal Francesco del Monte, representative of the Medici Grand Duke of the Holy See. This person lived in the Medici Palazzo Madama in Rome possessed. He was an expert on painting, music (guitar player was also a singer and "English") scientist, alchemist, follower of Galileo Galilei (which a few years later would be tried by the Inquisition for his heliocentric theory), as well as protector of the Academy of Santa Cecilia - music - and the San Lucas - painting - along with Federico Borromeo. He was a character in the Roman intelligentsia. It became the protector of the young Caravaggio circa 1595, in fact, the artist lived with him until 1600. Cardinal Del Monte put him in contact with families and Giuliani, Mattei and Crescenzo, and intrigued to get his first major public commissions. In these early years of Rome, Caravaggio was devoted mainly to genre painting. Working in medium format for private clients, usually of the nobility, they asked very specific works. Caravaggio prepared for each client reading very complicated scenes, full of keys that introduced second, third or fourth transcendent meanings that made an innocent statement sophisticated intellectual canvas. This type of paint that blends realism with the background painter allegorical and lyrical intent came from the "poetry" of Venice, of which were well known those of Titian. In that sense could be interpreted as the work or the Young Concert Lute Player. In these works overlap homosexual tendencies that appear tested Caravaggio and the environment, love for music as a means of achieving the perfect love, the androgynous, etc. Some of their models are repeated and the artist portrays himself often, it may be that some of its models were "castrati" for the appearance of sexual ambiguity in them. Obviously, the lack of definition is justified by several of the above arguments, but is also closely related to the great theme of androgyny. The androgynous arises from the union of opposites, the feminine and masculine, reflects the constant struggle for power in the world, between life and death, beauty and ugliness, and means the absence of control, perfection, one of the ideals of Neoplatonism. Neoplatonism is to combine classical Greek philosophy with Christianity through humanism, so that the Neoplatonic philosophers regarded as androgynous ideals of Christianity to Adam, before Eve's creation, and Christ. The theme of the androgyne was treated masterfully by Leonardo da Vinci, as seen in the Mona Lisa, or even more disturbing San Juan Bautista. The splendor of these issues in Caravaggio took place between 1593 and 1595. The first variation of his style was when the artist was commissioned Contarelli Chapel, the commission was due to the dark intrigues of Cardinal Del Monte, as though Caravaggio was known to a small circle connoisseurs of art, so officer was just a young newcomer to Rome. The order is crucial because it allows Caravaggio hanging their work in a public place where all of Rome could contemplate. The chapel in question is in the church of St. Louis of the French, space reserved for members of the influential French colony in Rome. She was dedicated to the merchant Contarelli Matthew French, whose name was chosen by the subject of the paintings (life of San Mateo). It was also considered that the request could be political, because in 1593 Henry IV of France had become of Protestantism to Catholicism, thus emblematized support for the Vatican and his rivalry with Spain, which had important possessions in Italy. Caravaggio was commissioned to mean a challenge, as there was to evolve from its essential to painting scenes of history. This means that in his early works showed the artist's style the elements essential to organize the scene, without showing the background and context takes place, and without narration. However, history painting requires more characters, their environment and contextualization in a more general, and the narration of that history. Caravaggio used a average, with figures extremely Verists and monumental solemnity that filled the canvas. History I had to tell was reduced to a climax, snapshot-like in which the action was concentrated, all psychology. And the lack of funds maintained with a sharp contrast of light that illuminated figures isolated against the dark, thus highlighting. The first two paintings of the chapel were a success, which gave him instant fame Caravaggio and the following public commission: two paintings for Santa Maria del Popolo. However, certain features of his painting commissions paralyzed; these traits, official channels could not accept, it was their fault against decorum. Caravaggio used models for his paintings taken from the Roman underworld, from which he moved with absolute ease. Her virgins were prostitutes, hustlers were angels, apostles and saints were beggars and panhandlers. The costumes of the characters respond to the current fashion and not the classical robes. The feet and the faces of his figures were dirty and abused. His paintings lost in competitions and were rejected by clients of the church, and were immediately disputed by the Romans and foreign collectors. This was the case of Dormition of Mary, who after being rejected was purchased privately by Rubens as an ambassador of the Duke of Mantua. To make matters worse, the work was exhibited at the private home of Rubens for eight days so that all of Rome could contemplate. The scandals and passions were the general tone of Caravaggio in Rome from 1599 to 1606 of problems with the law were exacerbated by violent altercations. One of the most notorious episodes took place in early 1601: Caravaggio wounded in a sword fight Flavio Canonico, a former sergeant in the Castel Sant'Angelo, and was imprisoned. The ambassador of France (remember his good performance in the commissioning of the chapel Contarelli) intervened to obtain his release. A year later, Caravaggio's biographer, Giovanni Baglione, sued him for libel. The issue had been already long, personal rivalry between both. Caravaggio and his cronies had spread through Rome satirical poems ridiculing the artist Baglione. The fact was very interesting because at the trial made a genuine Caravaggio show on painting and artists. At the time, accused him of frequenting Baglione bardassi (hustlers). Between 1604-1605 the imprisonment and assault occur at great pace, being helped by Cardinal Del Monte and other patrons. But the most prominent of these years was the attempted murder Mariano Pasqualone the notary, who had accused him of living with Lena, a prostitute who posed for Magdalena, the Dormition of Mary, etc.. Caravaggio ambushed him one night and hit him several ax in the head. The artist fled to Genoa, the notary survived and surprisingly dropped the charges, as Caravaggio returned to Rome. As an anecdote about the painter's restless nature will quote a statement made by the Roman guard, when he was questioned about some had stab wounds on the neck and face: Caravaggio claimed to have injured by accident with his own sword. However, their guards could do nothing in the case Tomassoni. According to the statement, Caravaggio was playing ball with Ranuccio Tomassoni, a member of the Roman underworld and leader of a gang, when there was a discussion between them. Caravaggio stabbed and died Tomassoni de las heridas; sobre Caravaggio se dictó sentencia de muerte -por decapitación- y huyó de Roma. Este agitado período de la vida de pintor dio lugar a algunas de sus más famosas creaciones. En sus pinturas religiosas hace patente que el Reino de Dios está en lo cotidiano y lo miserable, manifestándose en los pecadores y marginados de las Escrituras. Sus temas mitológicos son más escasos y adopta plenamente una manera monumental con un tratamiento verista de las figuras que parece casi clásico. Recurre a trucos efectistas que deslumbran la mirada, como son sus claroscuros, los contrapicados, la gestualidad de los personajes... La luz es fundamental en sus cuadros, funciona como un espacio autónomo, como un personaje más and as time, it introduces the narrative rhythm. The light source never appears on the canvas and often artificial, from a side angle. Light in Caravaggio always symbolizes the presence of the supernatural, the divine, according to the metaphysics of light of Plato or Augustine: God is light. The last years of Caravaggio consisted of a continuous wandering. Just committed the murder, Caravaggio took refuge in the Colli Albani, during the summer of 1606. The region was in Lazio and there enjoyed the protection of the Colonna, the then Marquis of Caravaggio, his hometown. Flight and being an outcast became the artist's paintings, which emphasizes realism while washes out the colors. The psychological intensity is a deep melancholy lyricism and suffocating spaces of his compositions are now lost tremendous gaps, as seen in the pathetic Burial of Santa Lucia. The Colli Albani offered no prospects for career success as a painter Caravaggio, who moved to Naples. There are no significant painters and it is English Viceroy, outside the Roman jurisdiction, its passage marked Naples local artists and one non-importance for the history of art: Jusepe Bank, the Españoleto, through whose works are transmitted gloomy naturalism Spain (Zurbarán, Velazquez, Maine). In Naples, he received important commissions, such as the Seven Works of Mercy or The Madonna del Rosario. At the same time, he painted several canvases dedicated to the Passion of Christ, with a strong emphasis on suffering and torture, with which Caravaggio probably be identified. In 1607 he heard of works to build the protocatedral of San Juan in Valetta, Malta, so he moved to there in search of commissions. On the island of Malta received asylum protection and the Order of the Knights of Malta and in particular its Grand Master, Alof De Wignacourt, who portrayed several times. Caravaggio regained its lost position and was even knighted. However, another fight, one of the noble knights, led to the disgrace, the Grand Master also learned of the charges against Caravaggio in Rome and imprisoned him. The artist fled with the help of strangers and took refuge in Sicily, while the Order was expelled as an foul and rotten. During 1608 and 1609 works on Caravaggio in Sicily, Siracusa and Messina, but still creates problems: it is reported again for continually bothering the students of a teacher of grammar, so in October 1609 took refuge in Palermo. From there back to Naples. Upon arrival at the hostel which houses get a tremendous beating that leaves serious consequences: offenders presumably were emissaries of the Knight of Malta who had assaulted in 1607. The beating left him disfigured and crippled. Paint these past months is dying, covered with a veil of diffused light that confuses the characters. At this time performs his David, which is considered his last work and an apology to the pope. It seems that Caravaggio is possible his return to Rome, so it is heading for Porto Ercole, which would take a boat to return. However, it stopped for a couple of days. Misses the boat and the July 18, 1610 died - probably of pneumonia or dysentery - on the beach at Porto Ercole, all alone.
http://www.artehistoria.jcyl.es/genios/pintores/gal1493-1.htm
