Born: 29 September 1571, Milan, Dutch of Milan, Spanish Empire.
Died: 18 July 1610 (aged 38), Porto Ercole, State of the Presidi, Spanish.
Full Name: Michelangelo Merisi da Caravaggio.
Periods: Baroque, Italian Baroque , Renaissance ,Baroque painting.
Michelangelo Merisi (Michele Angelo Merigi or Amerighi) da Caravaggio is a famous Baroque artist. And he is also one of the greatest Italian painters. He was a massive Italian painter. He was master of dark and light, Caravaggio led a crazy, dangerous life, full of giant creativity and incredible paintings. But he became famous after four hundred years later. He is most famous for his dark dramatic picture. He took the story from the Bible and produce them as painting
Michelangelo Merisi was born on 29 September 1571 in Caravaggio, near Milan about the time of Queen Elizabeth. His fathers’ name was Fermo (Fermo Merixio) and were an architect-decorator, his mother’s name was Lucia Aratori. After that, when Michelangelo was 5 years old, in Milan a terrible disease called the plague has broken out. So they decided to return their home town of Caravaggio and that’s why his name comes from. But on the same day in 1577, his father and grandfather both died. When Caravaggio became teenage, start learning all about painting and start a four-year apprenticeship to the Milanese painter Simone Peterzano. At this same year, his mother died. He was orphaned at age 11.
When he apprenticed with Peterzano, some rich and successful businessman man liked his work. Later he moved to Rome and meet Cardinal Francesco Maria del Monte. This town had one of the leading connoisseurs in Rome. There he helped him lots of work and introduce him to several important art collectors. Caravaggio’s first paintings were remarkable spirituality. The painting was about religious themes.
Thought Caravaggio has a serious problem of gimballing, he got a job in a church and he proved himself. Caravaggio’s art is made from darkness and light. His pictures present spotlit moments of extreme and often agonized human experience.
From his work, everyone thought he was homosexual. He likely slept with men. He did sleep with women. But he settled with no one. From a very young age, and with good cause, he suffered from a deep sense of abandonment.
He was a violent man, but he lived in a violent world. He knocks down a man(actually killed) and fled from Rome to Malta. But in Malta, he is involved in another fight and thrown into prison. Somehow he managed to skip and decided to return Italy.
Even now, his death is a mystery. Some said he had a fever at the time of his death, some have said he had malaria, or possibly brucellosis from unpasteurized dairy. Also, some scholars have argued that he was attacked by his enemies. His body was found on a beach. He was buried in a disgraced grave with poor and ordinary people. He died at the age of 38 on 18 July 1610.
Important work of Caravaggio:
1. The Musicians(1595–1596):
The Musicians
2. Judith Beheading Holofernes (1599–1602):
Judith Beheading Holofernes