Caravaggio
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Michaelangelo Merisi da Caravaggio was active all throughout Italy as a painter before and into the beginning of the Baroque Period. His most active years were from the early to mid 1590s until 1610. The Baroque Period began in 1600 and was greatly influenced by Caravaggios work. He was renowned for his use of stark lighting in his paintings that became known as tenebrism.
Tenebrism is a very interesting style of painting with oils. It creates the effect on canvas as if a bright single spotlight is shining on the models of the portrait. This is incredibly difficult to achieve in painting, requiring a true masters touch. The contrasts between light and dark tones are extreme, adding high amounts of drama, tension, and effect to any portrait or scene. It also adds a greater effect of dimensionality, creating a three dimensional feel as the “light” wraps around skin and pronounces all edges of the model.
The Baroque period began around 1600 and was the result of the Roman Catholic church beginning to create policy on how art was to be presented to the public. Specifically the church wanted to move towards a more populist ideal, meaning that the art would speak more to the illiterate than to the well educated. The period moved outward until it affected all arts including painting, architecture, and music.
Caravaggio was a master of intense realism in his portraits, which pleased the Roman Catholic church as they wanted art to move in a more natural and realistic direction. So Caravaggio went well beyond this note to provide dirty fingernails, dirty feet, the holes in pierced ears, and the bruises and worm holes on apples.
After training in Milan for a number of years, Caravaggio left to make his mark in Rome. This was also partly due to the fact that he was known to be a rather hot head and would frequently find himself in brawls and was likely in an incident resulting in the wounding of a police officer.. So after his “flight” to Rome, he quickly made a name for himself, becoming the most widely regarded artist in the city. After another of these incidents where he