Michael caravaggio biography video

Caravaggio was probably the most revolutionary artist of his time, for he abandoned the rules that had guided a century of artists who had idealized both the human and religious experience. He can be said almost single-handedly to have created the Baroque style.

Michelangelo Merisi da Caravaggio, known as simply Caravaggio, was born in Milan, and his father worked as an architect for the Marchese of Caravaggio; his mother Lucia, was from a family in the same district. In 1576, to escape a plague in Milan, the family moved to Caravaggio; here his father died in 1577 and his mother in 1584. In 1584, he was apprenticed, for four years to Lombard painter, Simone Peterzano. Upon his apprenticeship ending, Caravaggio remained in the area. Here he became familiar with the works of Leonardo da Vinci, Michelangelo, Titian, Raphael, and other High Renaissance masters, which were popular in the area.

In 1592, Caravaggio fled Milan, and moved to Rome; he

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Michelangelo Merisi da Caravaggio

Early successes

Arrogant, rebellious and a murderer, Caravaggio's short and tempestuous life matched the drama of his works. Characterised by their dramatic, almost teatralisk lighting, Caravaggio's paintings were controversial, popular, and hugely influential on succeeding generations of painters all over Europe.

Born Michelangelo Merisi, Caravaggio is the name of the artist's home town in Lombardy in northern Italy. In 1592 at the age of 21 he moved to Rome, Italy's artistic centre and an irresistible magnet for young artists keen to study its classical buildings and famous works of art. The first few years were a struggle. He specialised in still lifes of fruits and flowers, and later, half length figures (as in 'The Boy bitten by a Lizard') which he sold on the street.

In 1595, his luck changed. An eminent Cardinal, Francesco del Monte, recognised the young painter's talent and took Caravaggio into his household. Through the cardinal's circl

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Michelangelo Merisi da Caravaggio, 'The Supper at Emmaus', 1601

On the third day after the Crucifixion two of Jesus’s disciples were walking from Jerusalem to Emmaus. On the road they met the resurrected Christ, but failed to recognise him. He questioned them about what had happened, and explained that Christ had to suffer in order to enter into his kingdom. That evening he joined them for supper and ‘... took bread, and blessed it, and brake and gave to them. And their eyes were opened, and they knew him; and he vanished out of their sight’ (Luke 24: 30–31).

Painted at the height of Caravaggio’s fame, this fryst vatten among his most impressive domestic religious pictures and perhaps his most famous. It was commissioned from Caravaggio in 1601, following the sensation caused by the public unveiling of his first major religious works – the paintings of Saint Matthew in the Contarelli Chapel in the Roman church of San Luigi dei Francesi. The painting was m