Caravaggio, Rembrandt and Velazquez

Michelangelo Merisi, known widely by the name of his Italian hometown, Caravaggio, is a particular favorite of mine. Merisi trained in Milan but his fame came after he went to Rome in the early 1590s. Not too long ago I posted about seeing five Caravaggios in Rome during a visit there, in side chapels of various churches. The hike across the old city to visit the works was worth it.

Caravaggio, "John the Baptist," oil on canvas, 1604

Caravaggio painted somewhere between forty and eighty works (there's a lot of disagreement), mostly in Rome, during his twenty year career. Owing (it seems) to an irascible, combative nature he was often in conflict with others and after killing a man in a street fight he fled Rome for Naples and elsewhere and eventually died in 1610 of "a fever." Although Caravaggio was arguably the most famous painter in Rome during his lifetime, and his work is well known today, after his death it slowly became more and more obscure so that during the 18th and 19th centuries he was widely ignored. Remarkably, though, his work and reputation were revived by the 20th, and deservedly so.

Caravaggio's mature work featured what is known as chiaroscuro, by which people generally mean the dramatic use of illumination against a dark background. An example is the life-sized "John the Baptist" in the Nelson-Atkins Museum of Art in Kansas City (right). In part it seems to me that he was emphasizing a kind of "divine light" in the surrounding darkness. The raking light and high contrast are dramatic and fix the subject in the viewers' eyes the way a spotlight does. Tenebrism is the term for such dramatic lighting. The emotional effect in the early 17th century, in candlelight, must have been enormous. Certainly this sort of dramatic effect came into wide favor during the era we call Baroque.

Despite his relative obscurity in the 18th and 19th centuries Caravaggio's work was influential in the development and art of European painters during that same period. Painters across Europe explored  this way of illuminating and dramatizing the subject, to great effect, and they in turn taught others, spreading the method widely. Today we call them Caravaggisti. Caravaggistis in southern Europe include a number of lesser-known painters, but in northern Europe enormously talented and well-known artists took up the brush. Peter Paul Rubens, the Flemish genius, for example, lived and worked in Italy as Caravaggio's contemporary and brought the style back to Antwerp with him.

Rembrandt, "Bust of an Old Woman," oil on panel, ~1630

Two of the other titans of the Baroque era, Rembrandt van Rijn and Diego Velazquez, were each and separately influenced by Caravaggio's tenebrism. Rembrandt never left Holland, but through his teacher Pieter Lastman he may have learned tenebrism as a dramatic device. It is known that Lastman studied in Italy around 1605 (Merisi fled Rome in 1606) and was probably familiar with Caravaggtio, but there is no evidence supporting the presumption. Still, there are many examples of tenebrism in Rembrandt's work. One of his famous portraits of his mother, "Bust of an Old Woman" (left) is a fine one.

This year is the 350th anniversary of the death of Rembrandt, and this year the Rijksmuseum in Amsterdam is holding The Year of Rembrandt exhibition that will include all of their holdings of his work, which are the largest in the world. This spring they intend to display each of the 400 or so works in their collection, while later in the year will come an exhibition of the works of Rembrandt and Velazquez together which promises to be a delicious show.

Velazquez, "Juan de Pareja," oil on panel, 1650

It is unclear how exactly Velazquez was influenced by Caravaggio, but certainly his trips to Rome on behalf of his king (1629-1631 and 1649-1651) allowed him to see and probably study many of Michelangelo Merisi's works. Additionally, Rubens had been in Rome at the time of Caravaggio and would later meet and work with Velazquez in Madrid while on a diplomatic mission between England and Spain (1628-1629). Rubens and Velazquez had planned to go to Rome together but in the end only Velazquez could go in 1629 It is interesting to speculate whether Rubens directed Velazquez to study the works of Merisi--perhaps he did.

This fall, as part of the Rijkmuseum celebration, there will be an exhibition of Rembrandt and Velazquez side by side, along with works by Hals, Vermeer, Murillo, and others. The purpose of the fall exhibition is not only to note the Year of Rembrandt, but also the 200th birthday of the Museo del Prado in Spain, which is lending major pieces from its extensive Velazquez collection. For anyone who admires 17th century painting, the coming exhibition stands to be a once in a lifetime opportunity. I plan to attend if humanly possible.