Basket of Fruit, c. 1594–1598. Oil on canvas, 47 × 62 cm. Biblioteca Ambrosiana, Milan.
Caravaggio next worked with Monsignor Fantin Petrignani, who allowed him the use of a room in which to paint. Later, around 1595–1597, thanks to the art dealer Maestro Valentino, his work caught the attention of Cardinal del Monte, and from then on the artist was under his protection.[31] He was welcomed with magnanimity into the Cardinal’s home, where he benefited from this new environment. His entry to the palace, where he rubbed shoulders with scientists, in particular Galileo, musicians and artists in pursuit of innovation, allowed him to develop new forms of expression. He painted a “group of young musicians, portraits painted from life, very well made” for the Cardinal, which launched a new form of genre painting with music as the subject, which was common right into the eighteenth century. Of course there were occasional isolated forerunners on this subject, notably a concert (from the fifteenth century) with a mandolin player and a man and a woman singing, pictured from the waist upwards, attributed to Ercole dei Roberti.[32] In the same way, on the theme of The Prodigal Son, there are several similar subjects in the Nordic art of the early sixteenth century, for example in the works of Hemessen and Lucas van Leyden.[33] As for members of the Venetian School, they had depicted similar subjects in a nobler way, such as Giorgione’s depiction of a concert in the Palazzo Pitti and another concert by one of Titian’s successors in the National Gallery in London. But Caravaggio used his own means to lift this genre to the height of an almost tendentious monumentality. A number of such Musiche – the attribution of which are not completely certain – are thought to be in English private collections, such as a concert with an old man with a lute, a younger man with a flute and a singing boy in the collection of Lord Ashburton.[34] In Chatsworth House there is a concert of guitar and flute players with a singer, who is holding a full glass in his hand, which was previously attributed to Caravaggio but is now thought to be the work of one of his disciples, the great Valentin de Boulogne.[35] In Kassel there are two similar depictions of concerts.[36] Baglione mentions another painting, depicting a young man with a flute, which Caravaggio may also have made for the Cardinal, but whose attribution is still contested. In this painting he intensified his skill in imitation in competition with the Nordic artists, as in all the paintings of this genre. Remarkable also in the work is the vase of flowers, in whose water is reflected the window and other objects in the room. Baglione states that these works were created “with an exquisite application”, recognising the great art of his adversary in the courts. The Musicians highlights the elegant setting that would evolve within Caravaggio’s work from then on. Vegetables, fruit and other still-life objects were exchanged for lutes and violins. However, this genre is in no way naive. Cupid, who is clearly identified by his wings and arrows, only serves to accentuate the sensuality that emanates from the figures. The fabrics draped over the musicians hide the essential parts, but the disordered cloth is equivocal in its nature, as is the lascivious gaze of the watching figure in the background.
Rest on the Flight into Egypt, 1596–1597. Oil on canvas, 133.5 × 166.5 cm. Galleria Doria Pamphilj, Rome.
Rest on the Flight into Egypt (detail), 1596–1597. Oil on canvas, 133.5 × 166.5 cm. Galleria Doria Pamphilj, Rome.
Rest on the Flight into Egypt (detail), 1596–1597. Oil on canvas, 133.5 × 166.5 cm. Galleria Doria Pamphilj, Rome.
Over the years, the representation of nature in which Caravaggio excelled was replaced by other themes, as outbursts of violence and aggressiveness were taking more hold of his life and work. The painter essentially endeavoured to reproduce the emotions and passions of mankind, such as vice, crime or human suffering, beyond any mere aesthetic effect.
The recurrent themes of his work echoed his mood and as a musical chord can be deconstructed, one could also deconstruct the themes of his paintings into notes: those of darkness, blood, scoundrels and gamblers, cheats and Bohemian thieves. These notes are accompanied by a background rhythm of subjects and musical episodes, while unrestrained bursts of comedy bring a discordant note into solemnly tragic or sacred events.
Despite the naive character of the painter’s first biography, it is undeniable that Caravaggio’s personality traits attracted him towards an obscure style of painting (or “Tenebrism”), his works to be enlivened by the breath of Realism. The obscure depth of his work is filled with the intimate feelings of their creator. One cannot exclude the idea that his taste for strong contrast of shade and light may correspond to the use of a long-matured technique. This technique seeks to evoke in the spectator an emotion in harmony with the dramatic tonality of the representation, by imprinting upon the forms an energetic relief favourable to a realistic expression of his art. But the consistency of his style and the profusion of shade, despite some technical loopholes, suggest with reason the artist’s predilection for contrasting colours reflecting his “brilliant and tormented” temperament, as Bellori recorded.
During these decisive years for his art, he produced numerous canvases. The work he carried out for the Contarelli chapel established his reputation and the prelates of Rome decided to entrust him with the realisation of large religious paintings. It was not unusual for his commissioners, as princes and prelates engaged in a game of “cultural rivalry”, to order several versions of the same subject from the artist to enrich their collections with the same masterpieces; scenes of the Nativity, the Supper at Emmaus, Saint Jerome, David and Goliath, The Fortune Teller, The Card Players and Mary Magdalene were all such subjects. He would borrow certain characters from one painting and place them in another composition, such as the old woman with her head in her hands in a gesture of terror, a figure that appears in both Burial of Saint Lucy and The Beheading of Saint John the Baptist. Another old woman seen in profile, reminding us of La Vecchia by his great influence Giorgione, is present both in The Tooth Puller and in Judith and Holofernes.
Penitent Magdalene, 1596–1597. Oil on canvas, 122.5 × 98.5 cm. Galleria Doria Pamphilj, Rome.
Saint Catherine of Alexandria, c. 1597. Oil on canvas, 173 × 133 cm. Museo Thyssen-Bornemisza, Madrid.
The painter could also, unbeknown to him, repeat the same pictorial gesture or, by simple predilection, favour a line, a form, a type of light, or a contrast he judged interesting. This led him to re-employ certain expressive details such as the very sensual incline of the neck of certain male and female figures, seen in such works as The Musicians and Rest on the Flight into Egypt, or the details of a flexed hand visible in the painting of Narcissus and The Beheading of Saint John the Baptist. Although these details have contributed to the definition his style and allowed art historians to identify certain paintings as being by him, the attribution of certain works, such as Ecce Homo and The Tooth Puller, still remains uncertain. Indeed, his very personal techniques, notably the incisions made in the thickness of the undercoats, the brown border which he left around his figures, the dark backgrounds that grew more and more refined, and the light delivered by a vertical or lateral source, creating highly-contrasting zones of light and shade, were not applied systematically by Caravaggio, while his successors sometimes used the same methods.
Favouring realism over the idealisation of biblical characters, he went as far as placing Saint Matthew sitting astride a stool, turning his roughly-painted feet towards the spectator. He painted the swollen, obscene body of a drowned woman in his representation of The Death of the Virgin and he symbolised, it seems, Architecture as a figure with the appearance of a woman from Trastevere holding a compass, or even Mary Magdalene with the features of common woman wearing dishevelled clothes and with her plaits undone.