Caravaggio Was the Other Michelangelo of the Renaissance | Hacker News Reader

Caravaggio Was the Other Michelangelo of the Renaissance

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The famous medusa piece, and similar stuff in this link, are mind-blowing in creativity with a bit of comedy too. After going through countless museums in Italy this summer, and especially in Florence, seeing all the Madonna and baby paintings, or similar church frescoes became too boring. Like some of these are meme worthy in our modern age, to be created by someone centuries ago is astonishing.

Also, wow...he only lived till 39. Compared to many other contemporaries of his time like Bernini(?), or even before him like the (OG) Michelangelo.

> seeing all the Madonna and baby paintings, or similar church frescoes became too boring

If it helps… at the time they were well known prostitutes.

Are we certain of this or is it popular speculation?

I'm somewhat afraid to google for sources from a work machine, but the factoid that renaissance artists (amongst others) used prostitutes as models was circulated by lecturers in my art history classes. Could still be popular speculation.

Hmm. I'd only thought of "factoid" in the sense of the B definition:

> a little-known bit of information; trivial but interesting data

It hadn't occured to me until seeing it used here that it also suggests something resembling fact that isn't necessarily, which seems to be the original meaning.

FWIW, I did google it, and in Caravaggio's case we know some of the women's names who he used as models (and their occupation did seem to line up with what's suggested by the factoid).

historic certainty isn't the same as math certainty… they did find documents about this, but you need some amount of trust… unlike for theorems.

Anyway I've recently read this: "Caravaggio segreto. I misteri nascosti nei suoi capolavori." Costantino D'Orazio. Which I bought at the Musei Capitolini in Roma.

Madonna y Bambino. you’ll sound like a renaissance pro if you adopt that phrase.

Sorry to be pedantic but "y" is Spanish. Wikipedia says the Italian name of the painting is Madonna col Bambino e angeli

Btw, I read through the article later, but forgot to comment again- He murdered someone?? And got exiled(no jail?). And ended up in fight, that crippled him before he died the next year? Dude was a renegade.

Except that Caravaggio wasn't a Renaissance artist as he worked in the Baroque period.

Exactly. Alberti was the genius, Michelangelo the worker.

He's a bridge between the two.

For a more realistically gory version of the Judith Beheading Holofernes theme, see Artemisia Gentileschi‘s painting: https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Judith_Slaying_Holofernes_(A.... She was raped when she was 18 and then had to go through a grueling trial. She created this painting 1-2 years after.

The David of Michelangelo is the most famous italian sculpture, but it dwarf in comparison to other works, like the Bernini David [0], made a century later

[0]https://www.theartpostblog.com/en/david-bernini/

Probably itself a dwarf in comparison to Apollo and Dafne [0], but the Baroque period was later criticized, that's why the lack of fame and popularity

[0] https://www.artesvelata.it/apollo-dafne-bernini/

You've gotta see that one in person to truly appreciate what Bernini was able to do. Dafne's fingers are turning into leaves and those leaves are thin enough so that you can see light through the marble. If you're ever in Rome make sure you get to the Borghese Gallery it has several of Bernini's best works.

> The David of Michelangelo is the most famous italian sculpture

The most famous sculpture. Period. I can't think of any other piece of art (maybe with the exception of the Mona Lisa which is not a sculpture) that is more famous or instantly recognizable as Michelangelo's David.

Rodin's Thinker always comes to mind when I think of famous sculpture, but probably still quite a bit less recognizable than David. Venus de Milo maybe? Also not exactly a David, I guess.

> Where [Michelangelo] was responding to esoteric Renaissance Christian Neoplatonism...Caravaggio turned his eye to the forgotten and the outcast. In his canvases, Andrew Graham-Dixon observes, “Christ and his followers looked a lot more like beggars than cardinals.”

And he practiced what he preached!

> Caravaggio beat nobleman Girolamo Stampa da Montepulciano, a guest of the cardinal, with a club, resulting in an official complaint to the police

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Caravaggio#Legal_problems_and_...

When I teach art history, I present a few artists as ‘atom bombs’ for the influence they had. Caravaggio was one of them for the fact that it was perfectly clear that he painted directly from observation.

The same cannot be said of Michelangelo whose work was a synthetic regurgitation of Greek classics.

Caravaggio (together with Bruegel from a different direction) brought about realism, which remains a major force in creativity (e.g cinema verite, docudrama, street photography etc).

Maybe at painting, but Caravaggio never did much sculpture, in which case I might point to Bernini, or at drawing, in which case I might point to Davinci or Raphael or Titian.

Michelangelo was a Renaissance man in his own right comparable to Davinci, but in different disciplines.

Caravaggio is indeed a brilliant painter, but on the level of versatility as Michelangelo? And therefore an ideal example of a Renaissance man? My humble opinion is no, he is not.

FTA, he's "the other Michelangelo" because he's also named Michelangelo.

If you enjoyed this article Simon Schama's series, The Power of Art, has excellent coverage of Caravaggio. Would highly recommend, and I think it's available on YouTube. The whole series is great and was basically the only resource my art history teacher used.

There's also a long lost Caravaggio in the National Gallery of Ireland that showed up in a Jesuit Father's house: https://www.nationalgallery.ie/art-and-artists/exhibitions/p...

There are so many artists as impressive as the canonically "great" ones with life stories just as thrilling.

I suggest anyone interested to just pick a book or biography about some reinassance artist you've never heard about and you'll be surprised of how much great stuff goes under the radar in mainstream culture

Or one could pick up the Vasari book.

If you're ever in Rome, don't cheap out on the museums. Take the guided tour, I highly recommend it for Villa Borghese. Price difference is minuscule, but your experience is wayyy better.

The Borghese gallery is phenomenal. The Bernini sculptures there are one of the few times I've been genuinely moved by something in a museum.

I remember a friend raving about the Borghese gallery and thinking ok, I'll check it out. You get there and it seems kind of small compared to, say, The Uffizi. But don't let that fool you it's jam packed with amazing Bernini sculptures. Give your self plenty of time to look at Apollo and Daphne up close and be amazed at those marble leaves that her fingers are turning into - they're so thin you can see light through them.

John Berger on Caravaggio

http://timothyquigley.net/vcs/berger-caravaggio.pdf

Thanks for posting this. Berger is great.

Daniele Bolelli has a great podcast on Caravaggio http://historyonfirepodcast.com/episodes/2016/8/15/episode-1...

Both were titans of arts. I wouldn't compare one to the other, I wouldn't say Caravaggio was a Michelangelo or Michelangelo was a Caravaggio. Different styles, different time periods, different personal philosophies, different principles and different ways of working. But both are great.

I read that as Titians, and thought: now we're really mixing our artists. Caravaggio was the Michelangelo and both were Titians, and Titian was the Leonardo, and...

Very bad and useless title. Tell me what the article talks about and not clickbaity things, which aren't even that much of a bait given he's a pretty well known artist.

We aren't all Boltzmann Brains that just snapped into existence knowing this stuff. Nor is the title clickbait. He's literally another guy named Michelangelo.

Take every Michelangelo that accomplished something and make an article about it? How is this useful? Take every scientist called Albert and make an article about it? Same name isn't interesting...

Never did architecture, nor sculpted afaik.

Absolutely right.

Unlike Michelangelo he wasn't: - a sculptor - an architect - a poet - or a military engineer

But a much better painter. Which is the one thing he did.

Michelangelo only had one real passion: sculpture. He was later asked to do the other works, like the Chapel, and if you notice it's clearly visible the "sculptor" style transfer to the paintings. That's not the case of Caravaggio.

I think it's just getting at the fact that he was also called Michelangelo. Not a great title though I'll agree.

The amount of whoosh in this thread near blew my hat off. I know we're not supposed to bitch about people not reading the article, but it's an interesting phenomenon in its own right that a spike of pseudo-pedants showed up who are (1) ignorant of the name connection and (2) blatantly dismissed the article without reading the first paragraph, which would have explained it.

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