Editing Caravaggio (section)

=== Beginnings in Rome (1592/95–1600) ===

Following his initial training under [[Simone Peterzano]], in 1592, Caravaggio left Milan for Rome in flight after "certain quarrels" and the wounding of a police officer. The young artist arrived in Rome "naked and extremely needy... without fixed address and without provision... short of money."<ref>Quoted without attribution in Robb, p.35, apparently based on the three primary sources, Mancini, Baglione and Bellori, all of whom depict Caravaggio's early Roman years as a period of extreme poverty (see references below).</ref> During this period, he stayed with the miserly Pandolfo Pucci, known as "monsignor Insalata".<ref>{{cite book |last1=Louise Brown |first1=Beverly |title=The Genius of Rome, 1592–1623 |date=2001 |publisher=Royal Academy of Arts |isbn=9780900946882 |page=21}}</ref> A few months later he was performing hack-work for the highly successful [[Giuseppe Cesari]], [[Pope Clement VIII]]'s favourite artist, "painting flowers and fruit"<ref>Giovanni Pietro Bellori, ''Le Vite de' pittori, scultori, et architetti moderni'', 1672: "Michele was forced by necessity to enter the services of Cavalier Giuseppe d'Arpino, by whom he was employed to paint flowers and fruits so realistically that they began to attain the higher beauty that we love so much today."</ref> in his factory-like workshop.

In Rome, there was a demand for paintings to fill the many huge new churches and palaces being built at the time. It was also a period when the Church was searching for a stylistic alternative to [[Mannerism]] in religious art that was tasked to [[Counter-Reformation|counter the threat of Protestantism]].<ref>Harris, Ann Sutherland, Seventeenth-century Art & Architecture (Upper Saddle River: Pearson/Prentice Hall, 2008).</ref> Caravaggio's innovation was a radical [[Realism (arts)|naturalism]] that combined close physical observation with a dramatic, even theatrical, use of [[chiaroscuro]] that came to be known as [[tenebrism]] (the shift from light to dark with little intermediate value).

[[File:Caravaggio - I Musici.jpg|thumb|upright=1.2|left|''[[The Musicians (Caravaggio)|The Musicians]]'', 1595–1596, [[Metropolitan Museum of Art]], New York]]

Known works from this period include the small ''[[Boy Peeling a Fruit]]'' (his earliest known painting), ''[[Boy with a Basket of Fruit]]'', and ''[[Young Sick Bacchus]]'', supposedly a self-portrait done during convalescence from a serious illness that ended his employment with Cesari. All three demonstrate the physical particularity for which Caravaggio was to become renowned: the fruit-basket-boy's produce has been analyzed by a professor of horticulture, who was able to identify individual cultivars right down to "...a large fig leaf with a prominent fungal scorch lesion resembling [[anthracnose]] (''Glomerella cingulata'')."<ref>{{cite web|url=http://www.hort.purdue.edu/newcrop/caravaggio/caravaggio_l.html |title=Caravaggio |publisher=Hort.purdue.edu |access-date=18 November 2012}}</ref>

Caravaggio left Cesari, determined to make his own way after a heated argument.<ref>{{Cite book|title=Caravaggio|last=Hibbard|first=Howard|publisher=Thames and Hudson|year=1983|isbn=978-0500274910|location=London|pages=85–86}}</ref> At this point he forged some extremely important friendships, with the painter [[Prospero Orsi]], the architect [[Onorio Longhi]], and the sixteen-year-old [[Sicily|Sicilian]] artist [[Mario Minniti]]. Orsi, established in the profession, introduced him to influential collectors; Longhi, more balefully, introduced him to the world of Roman street brawls.<ref>Catherine Puglisi, "Caravaggio", p. 79. Longhi was with Caravaggio on the night of the fatal brawl with Tomassoni; Robb, "M", p.341, believes that Minniti was as well.</ref> Minniti served Caravaggio as a model and, years later, would be instrumental in helping him to obtain important commissions in Sicily. Ostensibly, the first archival reference to Caravaggio in a contemporary document from Rome is the listing of his name, with that of Prospero Orsi as his partner, as an 'assistant' in a procession in October 1594 in honour of St. Luke.<ref>H. Waga "Vita nota e ignota dei virtuosi al Pantheon" Rome 1992, Appendix I, pp. 219 and 220ff</ref> The earliest informative account of his life in the city is a court transcript dated 11 July 1597, when Caravaggio and Prospero Orsi were witnesses to a crime near [[San Luigi dei Francesi|San Luigi de' Francesi]].<ref>"The earliest account of Caravaggio in Rome" Sandro Corradini and Maurizio Marini, [[The Burlington Magazine]], pp. 25–28</ref>

[[File:Saint Francis of Assisi in Ecstasy-Caravaggio (c.1595).jpg|thumb|upright=1.2|''[[Saint Francis of Assisi in Ecstasy (Caravaggio)|Saint Francis of Assisi in Ecstasy]]'' (c. 1595), [[Wadsworth Atheneum]], Hartford]]

''[[The Fortune Teller (Caravaggio)|The Fortune Teller]]'', his first composition with more than one figure, shows a boy, likely Minniti, having his palm read by a Romani girl, who is stealthily removing his ring as she strokes his hand. The theme was quite new for Rome and proved immensely influential over the next century and beyond. However, at the time, Caravaggio sold it for practically nothing. ''[[The Cardsharps]]''—showing another naïve youth of privilege falling victim to card cheats—is even more psychologically complex and perhaps Caravaggio's first true masterpiece. Like ''The Fortune Teller'', it was immensely popular, and over 50 copies survived. More importantly, it attracted the patronage of [[Cardinal (Catholic Church)|Cardinal]] [[Francesco Maria del Monte]], one of the leading connoisseurs in Rome. For del Monte and his wealthy art-loving circle, Caravaggio executed a number of intimate chamber-pieces—''[[The Musicians (Caravaggio)|The Musicians]]'', ''[[The Lute Player (Caravaggio)|The Lute Player]]'', a tipsy ''[[Bacchus (Caravaggio)|Bacchus]]'', and an allegorical but realistic ''[[Boy Bitten by a Lizard]]''—featuring Minniti and other adolescent models.
[[File:Michelangelo Caravaggio 020.jpg|thumb|upright=1.2|left|[[The Lute Player (Caravaggio)|''The Lute Player'']] (Hermitage version), {{Circa|1600}}, [[Hermitage Museum]], Saint Petersburg (commissioned by [[Francesco Maria del Monte]])]]

Caravaggio's first paintings on religious themes returned to realism and the emergence of remarkable spirituality. The first of these was the ''[[Penitent Magdalene (Caravaggio)|Penitent Magdalene]]'', showing [[Mary Magdalene]] at the moment when she has turned from her life as a courtesan and sits weeping on the floor, her jewels scattered around her. "It seemed not a religious painting at all ... a girl sitting on a low wooden stool drying her hair ... Where was the repentance ... suffering ... promise of salvation?"<ref>Robb, p. 79. Robb is drawing on Bellori, who praises Caravaggio's "true" colours but finds the naturalism offensive: "He (Caravaggio) was satisfied with [the] invention of nature without further exercising his brain."</ref> It was understated, in the Lombard manner, not histrionic in the Roman manner of the time. It was followed by others in the same style: ''[[Saint Catherine (Caravaggio)|Saint Catherine]]''; ''[[Martha and Mary Magdalene (Caravaggio)|Martha and Mary Magdalene]]''; ''[[Judith Beheading Holofernes (Caravaggio)|Judith Beheading Holofernes]]''; ''[[Sacrifice of Isaac (Caravaggio)|Sacrifice of Isaac]]''; ''[[Saint Francis of Assisi in Ecstasy (Caravaggio)|Saint Francis of Assisi in Ecstasy]]''; and ''[[Rest on the Flight into Egypt (Caravaggio)|Rest on the Flight into Egypt]]''. These works, while viewed by a comparatively limited circle, increased Caravaggio's fame with both connoisseurs and his fellow artists. But a true reputation would depend on public commissions, for which it was necessary to look to the Church.

[[File:Caravaggio - Medusa - Google Art Project.jpg|thumb|upright=.8|''[[Medusa (Caravaggio)|Medusa]]'', {{circa|1597}}, [[Uffizi]], Florence]]
[[File:Narcissus-Caravaggio (1594-96) edited.jpg|thumb|[[Narcissus (Caravaggio)|''Narcissus at the Source'']], 1597–1599, [[Galleria Nazionale d'Arte Antica]], Rome]]
Already evident was the intense realism or naturalism for which Caravaggio is now famous. He preferred to paint his subjects as the eye sees them, with all their natural flaws and defects, instead of as idealised creations. This allowed a full display of his virtuosic talents. This shift from accepted standard practice and the classical idealism of [[Michelangelo]] was very controversial at the time. Caravaggio also dispensed with the lengthy preparations for a painting that were traditional in central Italy at the time. Instead, he preferred the Venetian practice of working in oils directly from the subject—half-length figures and still life. ''[[Supper at Emmaus (Caravaggio, London)|Supper at Emmaus]]'', from {{Circa|1600–1601}}, is a characteristic work of this period demonstrating his virtuoso talent.