Caravaggio Detour

Part of Walking Rome: The Guide to an Art Promenade

Chiesa San Luigi dei Francesi and its Contarelli Chapel

Giacomo della Porta's facade for Chiesa San Luigi dei Francesi, or as the French call it Saint Louis des Fraçais, appears situated off the tourist track between the Pantheon and Piazza Navona. The exterior,considered to be iconic of the artist’s style and talent. does not reflect, nor any street signs, posts, or plaques show, that within the chiesa is the Contarelli Chapel decorated with three paintings by Caravaggio, also known as Michelangelo da Merisi.

1599-1600. Contarelli Chapel, San Luigi dei Francesi, Rome

The church was originally commissioned in 1518 by the Florentine Medici family in recognition of the Catholic French community during a time when France saw a growth in its Protestant followers. The facade is decorated with statues of Charlemagne, St Louis, St. Clothilde and St. Jeanne of Valois in reflection of the structure’s French character. The interior design and decoration is given credit to a long list of artists from Cavalier D’Arpino to Antoine Dérizet.

There is a definite shift in mood entering the chiesa. Suddenly a monotone facade is contrasted by an overwhelmingly baroque gold decor. In the center of the long nave ceiling is a fantastic display of Domenichino’s masterpiece frescoes. The chapel to the left of the nave (far left end the church) exhibits some of the best exemplars of Caravaggio: The Calling of Saint Matthew, The Inspiration of Saint Matthew, and The Martyrdom of Saint Matthew. The three works are a sequence of the saint’s life from his early days as an avaricious tax-collector, to the moment of his divine intervention, and finally to the event that leads to his death. The works are definitely worth the 1 euro cost to light the chapel. The free entrance is compensated by a light box fee which is in no way worth a protest.

  Madonna di Loreto. 1603-05. Oil on canvas, Sant'Agostino, Rome

Il Caravaggio: a technique

Lute Player. c. 1596. Oil on canvas, 94 x 119 cm. The Hermitage, St. Petersburg

At a quick glance the paintings of The Calling of Saint Matthew, The Inspiration of Saint Matthew, and The Martyrdom of Saint Matthew are artistically fabulous that apply the famous Caravaggio technique of chiaroscuro to express a religious dialogue between story and audience. There has been a debate about the value of chiaroscuro since the moment of its application. There are those who acknowledged the artistic genius behind the creator and those who dismissed it for being a representation as a trick to hide artistic failure. On the genius side, by darkening the background, the foreground is highlighted and then illuminated. The scenes are almost photographic, rending a moment in time rather than a fixed sculptural depiction. On the negative side, some critics see the darkening of a large portion of the work was due to the inability to render entire canvases. This made Caravaggio a man of clever escapism. With whichever interpretive direction of belief, the paintings merit a visit.

Martha and Mary Magdalene, c. 1598, Oil on canvas,Institute of Arts, Detroit

Caravaggio was famous for his public and private commissions. Even at the worst of times Caravaggio remained in demand by the noble and elite. This of course is in part due to his association with the Medici family. After all, he was hosted by them for a long period of his stay in Rome. It is hard to recreate Caravaggio in Rome without mentioning Cardinal Francesco del Monte, the Medici art collector and host to many artists.

From tragic to homosexuality: contemporary portrayals

St John the Baptist (Youth with Ram), 1602, Pinacoteca Capitolina, Rome

Contemporary historians and critics have transformed Caravaggio’s image; each applying a diverse technique to rendering their version of Caravaggio into an interesting and innovative character. Caravaggio has witnessed artistic transformation over the past decades. New interpretations add to the artist’s life, image, and art. Vasari initially dominated the Renaissance values of artistic talent while contemporary texts have applied new analytical techniques to revisiting the artist under a new interpretive lens.

Caravaggio's fame has increased over the decades as he is identified more and more with a tragic and violent life. Helen Langdon’s biography Carravaggio: A Life has contributed to the discourse and attempts to relive the context of the artist’s life. While remaining a factual and neutral literature, Langdon leans towards establishing artistic intentions as her biographical monograph composites cultural context and psychoanalysis. Caravaggio’s art is by default linked to his life by beginning from his early childhood and ending with his isolated death. Essentially she believes that understanding Caravaggio will give insight to his paintings.

Caravaggio’s Secrets by Bersani and Dutoit, published in 1998, goes to the extent of an eroticized interpretation of the artist’s painting of Saint John the Baptist (Youth with a Ram). Using a Freudian-type of psychoanalysis, Caravaggio work is effected by his presumed homosexuality, and the layout of the painting has hidden underlying themes reflecting his inner emotional and sexual context in an attempt to develop his individual identity through his art.
Landgon looks to Caravaggio’s life to understand his art while Bersani and Dutoit look to his art to understand his own persona. Since there is no real way of knowing which analysis is more correct or brings Caravaggio back to life, the analysis open new doors to understanding and evaluating how modern society appreciates the past. In fact, in many ways, the concerns of the present conducted on historical pieces, persons and structures, identifies more of the evolving and current themes. Whether they apply to the actual concerns of the past is important as understanding the underlying concerns of the present. After all, studying the past is not on also relevant to evaluating history but also a technique of looking at the development of society. Art is not only an aesthetic development but also a cultural and social one.

The Calling of St. Matthew. 1599-1600, Contarelli Chapel, San Luigi dei Francesi, Rome

Rendering The Calling of Saint Matthew

Michelangelo. Creation of Adam, 1510, Fresco, 280 x 570 cm, Cappella Sistina, Vatican

In Caravaggio’s time the painting supposedly caused quit a stir for its unconventional portrayal of the saint. Normally, religious figures are shown in moments of pride and power. Caravaggio instead chose to express the transition from his life of sin and avarice to one of holiness. Saint Matthew is a tax-collector convert who, through divine inspiration, becomes a devot Christian saint. The painting confronts the audience of the chiesa with the moment, which seems to be on pause or delay, when Mattew is being summoned. Iconographically the saint is usually physically represented with a long beard with symbolic attributes of a moneybag, scroll, book, or angel, depending on the moment of his life being described.

The Inspiration of Saint Matthew, 1602, Contarelli Chapel, San Luigi dei Francesi, Rome

Caravaggio’s use of chiaroscuro isolates the painting to a single moment in time, sheltering all distractions, while, at the same time involving the audience. Focusing on the characters, Saint Matthew sits with one hand on the table preparing to drag coins towards himself, as a reminder of his early tax-collector days. The old man looking over his shoulder is reminiscent of Saint Jerome. His age and glasses reflect a type of blinding, an unwillingness to witness. The fingers of each character in the room point to Matthew in a defensive ‘not me’ wide-eyed look. The finger of the accuser reminiscent of Michelangelo’s Creation of Adam in the Vatican’s Sistine Chapel; another must-see-before-I-die hot spot. The light coming from the right opposes Matthew in the dark in the left reinforcing the moment of divine intervention, the saints conversion.

The second attempt at The Inspiration of Saint Matthew

The central painting is actually Caravaggio’s second attempt at the same subject. The first clearly adheres to the Renaissance tradition that derived from classical sources related to ancient Rome where figures were monumental and where the fine line between art and viewer was definite. The Contarelli Chapel exhibit the baroque version, one with a humanization of the sacred and where the audience of the Seicento is welcome to partake in the drama before them.

Guido Reni. St Jerome, c. 1635, Kunsthistorisches Museum, Vienna
St Matthew and the Angel. 1602. Formerly Kaiser-Friedrich-Museum, Berlin

The historian debates have been at odds trying to interpret Caravaggio’s personal relgious views. His famous paintings range from religious narratives to contemporary portaits. When commissioned by the church, his works rendered the goals of the Catholic-Reformation. This is not to say they always agreed with his paintings. T here have been cases of rejection and return. Even so, they still actively hired him to produce public works. Part of the goals of the period was to both ‘purify and rejuvinate’ the church by reflecting on its early history and return to its original values. Caravaggio’s religious portrayals and use of illumination by chiaroscuro reinforced the metaphor of the divine illumination.

The Martyrdom of St Matthew, 1599-1600, Contarelli Chapel, San Luigi dei Francesi, Rome

The two paintings of The Inspiration of Sain Matthew are completely different when considering figurative poses and iconographical references. In the fist,Caravaggio definitely relies on classical models. The saint is shown seated with his legs crossed as an angel sits beside him. As his pen marks his book, Caravaggio applies Hebrew writing making reference to Matthew’s identity as Levi, a Jewish publican or tax collector. It is said that he wrote his gospel in his native tongue before he left to Egypt from the Holy Land. The second version of The Inspiration of Sain Matthew, now in the Contarelli Chapel, unconventionally reworks the relationship between saint and angel. Rather than being seated, Matthew is half-kneeling in a rush to write what seems to be a dictation by the angel. He is no longer the composer but a preacher of the word of God transmitted by an Angel.

The composition is closely related to another religius intervention in Tintoretto’s The Virgin Appealing to Saint Jerome. As Caravaggio was inspired by a fellow artist, he also inspired. Guido Reni’s Saint Jerome with the Angel. Artists often relied on one another for technical, symbolic, and artistic sources. Some were friends, some collaborators, some acquaintancs, and some competitors. There were no finite rules to artistic production. The only fact was there were patrons who commissioned and artists who could either become famous for particular works or for a mass production of market-like pieces.

The Martyrdom of Saint Matthew

Again Caravaggio deviates from the traditional iconography of the subject. He paints a close-up detail and eliminating the background of the moment of Matthew’s execution. His careful use of chiaroscuro recreates a realistic rendering with a strong significant details. Poses and attire are symbolic distinctions between the faithful and the infadels. The male nudes create a circular layout around the central dressed figure. Matthew appears more like a priest dressed for a funeral. In the case of the church the funeral is a link between the saint and the Contarelli family who commissioned the chapel in the French chiesa.

Saint Matthew was executed for preaching and converting. The church showed fondness to Matthew for his ideologies linked to the Counter-Reformation of the seicento. During the period preaching was considered essential in the initial process of conversion. Pope Clement VIII, who ruled he papacy during Caravaggio’s time in Rome, was especially

concerned with conversions. In a sense there is even a link between converting and the Chiesa San Luigi dei Francesi. Afterall the church was build for the French community who lived in Rome. King Henry IV, in a more political move, converted to Catholicism in 1595 which highlighted Catholicism’s victory and pleased Pope Clement VIII.

Bellini, Gentile (Completed by Giovanni Bellini). Saint Mark Preaching in Alexandria. 1504-07Oil on canvas, 347 x 770 cm

Pinacoteca di Brera, Milan

Howard Hibbard’s Caravaggio published in 1983 links the artist directly to his art. A concept called ‘form of signature’ usually applies to the idea that an artist somehow visually links him or herself to the artwork. Gentile Bellini went to the extent of actually placing himself into a historical narrative in Saint Mark Preaching in Alexandria. Gentile’s tactic was for publicity and status. After all he depicted himself next to nobility on a highly public painting for a prestigious location. Hibbard sees the identify of the figure of a half naked man in the back left of the executioner as Caravaggio’s self-portrait. Calling him ‘a bearded, saturine villain who is none other than Caravaggio himself’. From descriptions of Caravaggio, the figure in the painting could easily be a self-portrait. The ideas behind why the artist would represent himself in such a manner is complex and hard to back up. Others have established a more likely explanation of the figure being King Hirtcus who ordered the slaying of Matthew.

Other Caravaggio's

Narcissus, 1598-99, Oil on canvas, 110 x 92 cm, Galleria Nazionale d'Arte Antica, Rome

Narcissus is a highly debated painting. There are those who do not accept the work being accredited to Caravaggio. Others believe it to be an example of his artistic talent. Caravaggio applies the Greco-Roman mythology of Ovid's Metamorphosis. The short version of the story is of Narcissus who comes across his own reflection in a stream. A vain and self-centered youth, unable to find his equal match he falls in love with himself. As he gazed at himself, he forgets to eat or drink. Eventually his self-love leads to his death.

"And how he kisses the deceitful fount; and how he thrusts his arms to catch the neck that's pictured in the middle of the stream!"

Portrait of Alof de Wignacourt with His Page, c. 1608, Oil on canvas, 194 x 134 cm, Musée du Louvre, Paris

Caravaggio painted the portrait of Alof de Wignacourt (1547-1622), the Grand Master of the Knights of Malta, during his stay in Maltan in  1607-1608. The Grand Master provided patronage to the artist after his escape from Rome after having been accused of having killed a man. His continued career after his accusation is considered a reinforcement of artistic talent. His clients continued to commission and demand his work.

St Jerome, 1605-06, Oil on canvas, 118 x 81 cm, Monastery, Montserrat

Caravaggio's painting depicts the moment St. Jerome translates the Bible into Latin, his greatest scholarly achievement. Usually at his feet sits a lion due to his association with the story that he had helped a lion remove a thorn from his foot. In return the lion helped saint. The painting is considered to be painted from life. The figure's suntan and the use of color and light reinforce the idea.

The Cardsharps, c. 1596, Oil on canvas, 92 x 129 cm, Kimbell Art Museum, Fort Worth

The Cardsharps is an example of Caravaggio's talent as a dramatic story teller. According to Helen Langdon's Caravaggio, scenes like these are influenced from the artist's life spent in the patronage and hospitality of Del Monte in Rome.  The melodramatic depictions describe the Caravaggisti style that his followers tried to imitate.

The Conversion on the Way to Damascus, 1600-01, Oil on canvas, 230 x 175 cm, Cerasi Chapel, Santa Maria del Popolo, Rome

After his work on the Contarelli Chapell, Caravaggio agreed to produce two pictures for the Cerasi Chapel in Santa Maria del Popolo. The church commissioned some of the finest painters working in Rome during the Italian Renaissance: Raphael, Carracci, Caravaggio and Bernini. Carracci's The Assumption is presumed to have already been hung above the alter when Caravaggio began his paintings.

The Conversion on the Way to Damascus represents the moment of St Paul's conversion. On Saul the Pharisee's (soon to be Paul the Apostle) way to Damascus, according to the Acts of the Apostles, had fallen to the ground when hearing the voice of Christ asking him: 'Saul, Saul, why do you persecute me?'

Caravaggio's narrative is close the Bible. is close to the Bible. In keeping with the ideologies of the Counter Reformation of recreating history by bringing Christians closer to stories of important figures. The Conversion on the Way to Damascus makes the religious experience as natural as possible. The work had been criticized. Apart from technical defects, patron Cardinal Sannesio dismissed the previous versions until the final painting was accepted by the church. The first attempt was taken by the Cardinal despite it's rejection.

The Denial of St Peter, c. 1610, Oil on canvas, 94 x 125 cm, Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York

The Denial of St Peter represents the final of many attempts and one of the artist's last works. The way the figures, lighting, and closeness of perspective was a unique Caravaggio technique that literally brought the viewer into the narrative as if being witness to the actual event and, by default, in testimony to the authenticity of the actual story.

The Fortune Teller, c. 1596, Oil on canvas, 115 x 150 cm, Pinacoteca Capitolina, Rome

The Fortune Teller is one of those debated paintings where authorship is unclear. The canvas originally carried the painting of, most likely, Virgin Mary. It gave opportunity for some historians to argue that the painting is the production of Cavaliere d'Arpino. On the other hand the origins of the painting link the work to the collection of Del Monte. The painting has close relations to other Caravaggio work, the Cardshops and Narcissus. What critics do agree upon, whoever the author, that the works carries a Caravaggesque style.

Bibliography

image library: Web Gallery of Art (online) http://www.wga.hu/

1. Bersani, L. and Duto, U. Caravaggio’s Secrets. (MA: MIT Press, 1998)
2. Camiz, Franca Trinchieri. ‘Death and Rebirth in Caravaggio’s ‘Martyrdom of St. Matthew’’ in Artibus et Historiae, Vol. 11, No. 22, (1990) pp. 89-105
3. Chorpenning, Joseph F. ‘Look at Caravaggio and Religion’ in Artibus et Historiae, Vol. 8, No. 16 (1987), pp. 149-158
4. Corradini, Sandro and Marini, Maurizio. ‘The Earliest Account of Caravaggio in Rome’ in The Burlington Magazine, vol. 140, no 1138 (Jan. 1998), pp. 25-28
5. Hass, Angela. ‘Caravaggio’s Calling of St Matthew Reconsidered’ in Journal of the Warburg and Courtauld Institutes. Vol. 51 (1988), pp. 245-50
6. Hibbard, Howard. Caravaggio. (London: Thames and Hudson, 1983)
7. Jones, Pamela. ‘The Age of Caravaggio: Early Modern Catholiscim’in Studies: An Irish Quarterly Review, Vol. 86, No. 241 (spring 1997) pp. 33-42
8. Langdon, Helen. Caravaggio: A Life. (London: Pimlico Press, 2000)
9. Lavin, Irving. ‘Divine Inspiration in Caravaggio’s Two St. Matthews’ in The Art Bulletin, Vol. 56, No. 1 (Mar. 1974) pp. 59-81
10. Nicolson, Benedict. ‘Caravaggio and the Caravaggesques: Some Recent Research’ in The Burlington Magazine, Vol. 116, No. 859. (Oct. 1974), pp. 565, 602-16, 622
11. Richardson. Carol. ‘Helen Langdon’s Caravaggio: A Life’ in Postgraduate Model in Art History. (Milton Keyes: open University 2005), pp. 1:1-1:34