A CHIAROSCURO PAINTER
The Caravaggio, which is now a protected artist, is housed in the Palais Madame, the current building of the Senate, property of the Cardinal del Monte and, after honoring numerous paintings for private collectors, he obtains prestigious commissions Religious paintings thanks to his new relations.
However, many of them are regularly denied for their excess of realism which is considered blasphemous by its ecclesiastical sponsors.
His singular approach, it is true, upsets all the codes of the time.
If it arouses admiration on the one hand, on the other it attracts the wrath of the purists who vehemently criticize its lack of formal learning and the absence of sketches of preparation because it draws directly on the canvas and then painted.
The choice of his subjects is also controversial.
Indeed, far from the idealized representations of the biblical characters, he chose human models and especially popular, marginals, prostitutes, beggars, street kids...
His painting contrasts with Mannerism and his greatest innovation is then in the use of light and shade.
