Caravaggio’s relationship with colour pigment allowed him to leave the original raw colour. Through the spatial organisation of the composition on a background of opaque tones, he managed to enhance the predominant base colour of the work. Caravaggio’s works, particularly those executed in Naples, show an almost systematic treatment of colour in this way. However, he always insisted on the use of natural colouring in his paintings. Federigo Barocci’s colour scale, composed arbitrarily, was alien to him[70], as were the works of Cigoli, which seem strangely animated by the glazing and the glistening colours. But Caravaggio was most interested in countering the naturalistic effect of his three-dimensional compositions, without erasing it, with the range of colour in his works, and the creation of a meaningful aesthetic whole for the lasting gaze.
There is also mention of an Orpheus, an example of profane art amongst his works that is now inaccessible. It would certainly allow closer study of Caravaggio’s connections to the Spanish School of painting, which can be followed from this point to Velázquez’ The Feast of Bacchus and Mars Resting. One of Caravaggio’s missing works deserves to be mentioned in this context: a depiction of four Cyclopes forging arms for Aeneas, which was at one time in the Cabinet of the Reynst brothers.
The impact of the artist’s stay in Naples for much of 1607 can be seen in the great artistic maturity displayed in his works at the time. The style he had developed in the paintings of Saint Matthew in San Luigi dei Francesi took on an authoritative quality, and Caravaggio’s powerful example lent itself from then on to similar conceptions. It was probably in Naples that Ribera, as well as Salvator Rosa slightly later, gained decisive inspiration from Caravaggio. They created their naturalistic etchings in the style of genre paintings, with which they gained their independence from the Bolognese School, though more from a technical point of view than thematic.
Caravaggio’s work in Naples allowed him to introduce the Roman Baroque style into painting. The architecture of the time also bore the marks of this style, such as the installation of the long nave up to the extraordinary dome in the Church of San Filippo Neri (Gerolomini) by Dionigio di Bartolomeo and Lazzari, realised between 1592 and 1619, and the Palazzo Reale as indicated by Domenico Fontana. In the same way, the impressive paintings of the Lombard artist, who had by then become truly Roman, triggered the development of the new style in art. Besides the above-mentioned Guiseppe Ribera and Salvatore Rosa, other linked artists are Mattià Preti, known as Il Calabrese, Luca Giordano, Lanfranco, and Monrealese.
The artistic domination of southern Italy could not have undermined Caravaggio’s impact there; it was as though they had been preparing for his arrival. It was at Valletta in Malta that the residence of the Grand Master of the Order of the Knights of Malta appeared to offer him sufficient protection[71]. It can be said with certainty that Caravaggio worked in Malta around 1608, and several pieces bear witness to his stay on the island. Some of his paintings have survived there, works which had an undeniable effect on the final development of his art. The first example is a depiction of The Beheading of Saint John the Baptist in the Church of San Giovanni in Valletta[72]. It is a wide picture of significant dimensions, and this genre-like style of painting marked a revolution in the painting of altarpieces. In this case, Caravaggio has completely abandoned the symbolic element of transubstantiation in the background, and has created a scene that is purely genre in content – a final consequence of the tendencies he expressed so blatantly in the paintings for San Luigi dei Francesi. This work is equally important in terms of its majestic style, a style which would become, as we shall see, a distinguishing feature of his final works. The figures in this painting have been placed on the left-hand side, crowded together to leave a large open space on the right. The overall psychological potency of the work provokes an effect which had never before been accepted in Baroque painting. This daring inclusion of empty space into the whole concept compensates for the cruelty of the unmotivated action taking place on the other side in an almost architectonic sense. Caravaggio seems to have employed means that originated from a completely different plane of observation to those he had used previously, which makes the audacity of the work significant. These are the consequences of a Baroque feeling for space, which was continued only by the Spanish School during the 17th century.
This work, The Beheading of Saint John the Baptist, is undeniably an astonishing masterpiece. It was executed very quickly, such that the canvas can be seen through the thin undercoats in certain places, and features, as we have seen, a rigorous and admirable composition. The painter succeeded in conferring a realistic aspect on the scene without reducing the dramatic tension of the torture scene (expressed by the old woman who holds her head in her hands).