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Michelangelo Merisi da Caravaggio (1571-1610) was a boldly original artist who led a short and violent life. His sexually provocative nude figures and his dramatic religious paintings have a psychological power and an undiminished capacity to shock and disturb after almost four centuries. Timothy Wilson-Smith provides a lively and readable biography of an artist who has become an iconic figure in the late twentieth century, and presents a memorable selection of his works, from his early genre pictures to the dark and intense religious paintings of his years in exile.… (more)
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Using/used as paper reference as I read and research Caravaggio biographies during school. Very beautiful reproductions, though I am disappointed in the absence of large reproductions of his Boy Peeling Fruit (how can you see an artist's growth without the first one!?) Narcissus, Portrait of a Courtesan, and the first Sacrifice of Isaac and David and Goliath paintings. More geared to post-1600 Biblical paintings than earlier works.

Edit: Disappointed (to say the least) in the authors assertion that "It has become commonplace of modern criticism to see Caravaggio as a member of some homosexual set", then goes on to dismiss the written record that he quite possibly had a catamite and the fact that the boy in Amor Vincit Omnia is quite literally stepping out of a bed naked. He continues to argue that the focus of the aforementioned painting is instead the scientific tools he is stepping over, with Mr. Smith seeming to forget the erotic connotations of compasses and other wares at this time period in Italy, and the abundance of contemporary poetry written on it. Reminds me of words from a wonderful article:
"Scholars now seem more or less to agree in the perverse and counterintuitive assertion that first, there is no evidence that Caravaggio was homosexual, and second, he is primarily a spiritual Catholic artist...I do not recognise this Caravaggio, the sexually and confessionally straight altar boy. In fact, it is an absurdity, the product of art-historical research that obsesses about patrons and forgets to look at the pictures themselves."

Oh well, I was here for the pictures... ( )
  Eavans | Feb 17, 2023 |
My first introduction to Caravaggio - all the main paintings, in whole-page colour plates, along with detailed notes. A great way to start learning about his work. ( )
  TheIdleWoman | Dec 8, 2017 |
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Michelangelo Merisi da Caravaggio (1571-1610) was a boldly original artist who led a short and violent life. His sexually provocative nude figures and his dramatic religious paintings have a psychological power and an undiminished capacity to shock and disturb after almost four centuries. Timothy Wilson-Smith provides a lively and readable biography of an artist who has become an iconic figure in the late twentieth century, and presents a memorable selection of his works, from his early genre pictures to the dark and intense religious paintings of his years in exile.

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