The Italian artist known as Caravaggio was a fascinating enigma in his lifetime and continues to evoke profound interest even more than four centuries after his untimely death at the age of 38 years. Born in Milan, Italy, on Sept 28, 1571, he was named Michelangelo Merisi da Caravaggio, the last name signifying the town he lived in during his early years. He rose to fame in Rome around AD 1600, both for his dramatic and lifelike oil paintings and was frequently endowed with commissions through a variety of influential patrons.

His rebellious nature however, invariably landed him in trouble on a regular basis and it was not unusual for him to squander his money and end up being involved in violent brawls. His artistic genius, coupled with his volatile temperament, made him both famous and notorious in his lifetime, and in recent times, his life story and his artistic contribution have evoked interest among art historians, writers and even filmmakers.

A film on Caravaggio was also made in the UK in 1986 that capitalised on the dramatic and even shocking aspects of the artist’s life.

His unstable temperament is often attributed to his turbulent early life, having lost both his parents at around 11 years of age, when the infamous bubonic plague ravaged the city of Milan. His father was an architect and decorator and his mother was from a propertied family of the same district, and it is recorded that they were well-connected to the powerful Colonna family. Both played an important part in their son’s early life.

Saira Dar captures the life of an artist who was considered the greatest pictorial dramatist of his age

The artist’s talent was discovered early in life and he was apprenticed for a few years to a painter named Simone Peterzano, who in turn was said to have been a pupil of artist Titian, known for his exquisite rendering and rich colour palette. After the end of his apprenticeship, Caravaggio probably became familiar with the works of other significant artists like Giorgione and Leonardo, and with the regional art of Lombard, which emphasised simplicity despite the attention to naturalistic detail.

Boy bitten by a lizard

Caravaggio’s quarrels in his native town, forced him to flee to Rome in 1592, where he arrived in a rather destitute state. Here he was initially engaged to do some paintings alongside Pope Clement VIII’s favourite painter Cesari, where he made some of his earliest known paintings such as ‘Boy peeling fruit’, ‘Boy with a basket of fruit’ and other such works which brought forth his ability to render details with astonishing brilliance. An illness, however, forced him to leave Cesari, but by now he had forged important friendships with other artists who introduced him to influential collectors.

The conversion of Saint Paul.

The artist’s uniqueness in those times was his ability to capture a moment with a kind of vividness and spontaneity which centuries later was associated with photography. His ‘Boy bitten by a lizard’ and ‘The supper at Emmaus’ are examples of such work. He also initiated realism rather than classical perfection that was prevalent during the Renaissance and he used common people off the street as his models, even when painting the most profoundly religious themes, at times to the horror of more conventional clients, who thought his work was ‘vulgar’.

His dramatic rendering of light, focusing and emphasising particular areas of a composition, made him a precursor to the Baroque style of painting which gained favour in the 17th century. In fact, it is said that his use of contrasts of light in paintings have even inspired some modern day film directors.

To achieve these effects, Caravaggio is known to have used dark vaults or other shadowed rooms with a single light above, that would emphasise only certain areas of his subject. Indeed, he was very particular about painting through live models and actually despised any other way of painting. In his time, artists made many drawings prior to starting their painting, but Caravaggio preferred to paint directly with his oil paints on canvas, a practice which was not common in those days. His unconventional painting techniques made him controversial but he was nonetheless acclaimed as a great and visionary artist especially by younger artists.

Maria Magdalena.

Caravaggio’s last days were unusually eventful and tumultuous; having been accused of murder, he had to flee to Naples where he was protected by the aforementioned Colonna family. Soon he was as famous in Naples as he had been in Rome, but left for Malta in an attempt to secure a pardon for the murder charge. His paintings from this part of his life were rather violent in nature, such as ‘The beheading of Saint John the Baptist’, and reflected his troubled state of mind, as often his self-portrait would appear in such paintings.

Eventually, he was also expelled from Malta and escaped to Sicily from where he embarked on an extended journey with an old friend and artist. Soon he was back in Naples where he felt more secure and painted a number of canvases. His last work was probably ‘The martyrdom of Saint Ursula’ which was full of action and drama and the brushstrokes were significantly impressionistic.

The artist’s early death in the year 1610 is shrouded in mystery. Some art historians say his body was never found while others have claimed to have only read a death notice stating that the artist had died of a fever while he was in Tuscany. Enigmatic in death as in his life, Caravaggio nonetheless left behind a powerful legacy of realism, drama and passion in the genre of oil painting and contributed to a change in the course of art history in the 17th century.

(The writer wishes to acknowledge the contribution of the following for this piece: www.caravaggio-foundation.org, www.caravaggio.com, www.biography.com, www.washingtonpost.com.)

Published in Dawn, Sunday Magazine, October 19th, 2014