29. Michelangelo Merisi da Caravaggio,
The Fortune-Teller, c. 1595-1598.

Oil on canvas, 99 x 131 cm. Musée du Louvre, Paris.

 

 

At the apogee of his career, Caravaggio developed and applied the principles of chiaroscuro by sharp, plastic, even hard modelling, by harsh contrasts in change between light and shadow, and by means of a brown-blackish overall tone. This new type of presentation was the basis of his fame as a Naturalist, even though this was what distanced him from Nature and caused his descent into subjective arbitrariness and possibly even into the grotesque. It is therefore easy to understand that an altarpiece with such violent positions and movements such as the painting for the San Luigi dei Francesi, the Calling of St. Matthew (1599-1600), caused anger in ecclesiastical circles and quickly had to disappear from the church. For the same reason, with the argument that the painting “of the Virgin is unworthy”, the Death of the Virgin (1605-1606) — in which the dying Virgin, appearing like a bloated corpse, surrounded by figures in exaggerated mourning – was rejected by the Carmelites from the Roman church della Scala.

And yet, with his Burial of Christ (1602-1604), originally commissioned for the chapel of the Family Francesco Vittrice, Caravaggio created a complete master work in composition, depicting mourning and pain and proving that his skill was second to none.

Because of his very chaotic lifestyle, Caravaggio did not found a school but seemed to have a certain influence on Jusepe de Ribera (called la Spagnoletto), who had emigrated from Spain and had been settled in Naples since 1616, becoming the leading master of the Neapolitan School. He absorbed certain elements from Caravaggio, which he added to the knowledge he had obtained from his teachers. Spagnoletto loved gloomy, tragic, and passionate themes as much as Caravaggio, and for this reason he painted similarly dark subject matter.