Caravaggio

Dramatic chiaroscuro

He painted saints as street people and lit them with a shaft of light from a single unseen source. The shock of Caravaggio was directness — no idealization, no apology, just the raw human figure caught in a moment of crisis.

Key works

• Calling of St Matthew1600— Light as divine intervention
  San Luigi dei Francesi, Rome
• Judith Beheading Holofernes~1599— Violence without flinching
  Galleria Nazionale d'Arte Antica, Palazzo Barberini, Rome

Connections

External