Art History Livestream: Caravaggio & The Italian Baroque (Online)

You are invited to join us for an art history livestream program covering the Italian painter Caravaggio, one of the greatest artists in history, especially noted for his dramatic use of light and shadow, and his influence on the Baroque era.

During and after the program you’ll have the opportunity to discuss the art with your fellow art lovers via Zoom.

Michelangelo Merisi da Caravaggio (29 September 1571 – 18 July 1610), known mononymously as Caravaggio, was an Italian painter active in Rome for most of his artistic life. His paintings have been characterized by art critics as combining a realistic observation of the human state, both physical and emotional, with a dramatic use of lighting, which had a formative influence on Baroque painting.

Caravaggio employed close physical observation with a dramatic use of chiaroscuro that came to be known as tenebrism. He made the technique a dominant stylistic element, transfixing subjects in bright shafts of light and darkening shadows. Caravaggio vividly expressed crucial moments and scenes, often featuring violent struggles, torture, and death. He worked rapidly with live models, preferring to forgo drawings and work directly onto the canvas. His inspiring effect on the new Baroque style that emerged from Mannerism was profound.

His influence can be seen directly or indirectly in the work of Peter Paul Rubens, Jusepe de Ribera, Gian Lorenzo Bernini, Velázquez and Rembrandt.

Caravaggio’s innovations inspired Baroque painting, but the latter incorporated the drama of his chiaroscuro without the psychological realism. The 20th-century art historian André Berne-Joffroy stated: “What begins in the work of Caravaggio is, quite simply, modern painting.”