Caravaggio's Medusa
Date: 1597
Medium: Oil, Concave Wooden Shield Canvas
Style: Baroque
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About the artist:
Caravaggio was born in Italy in 1571 as Michelangelo Merisi and orphaned shortly after when the bubonic plague killed most of his family. After the death of his family he lived on the streets with a group of hopeless painters whose motto meant “without hope, without fear”. When he turned 11 he moved to Milan to be a painter's apprentice with Simone Peterzano. In his later teen years Caravaggio moved to Rome without a penny to his name, he jumped from one job to another helping other painters to keep himself fed. In the year 1595 Caravaggio finally became successful selling one of his paintings through a dealer in turn catching the attention of the Cardinal, Francesco Del Monte who set him up with a room inside his own house providing him with a board and pension. By the time Caravaggio became under the Cardinal's influence he already had 40 pieces to his name. Caravaggio was rumored to only have one assistant named Cecco who would often star in his paintings, early rumors also stated that they may have been lovers. In 1597 Caravaggio was well recognized and was commissioned to decorate the Contarelli Chapel in Italy. The 3 works he created for the Chapel showed his range as an artist, however because he was a hyperrealist he had to redo his first piece as it depicted St. Matthew in a far to realistic light and created turmoil in the community. Caravaggio fought often and controversy followed him wherever he went, in 1603 he served a short prison sentence for attacking another painter. As time passed he became more violent with many assaults over the next few years. In 1606 he attacked and killed a popular Roman pimp causing him to go on the run for the rest of his life. One of the places he stayed was Malta where he was knighted as a knight of justice until they found out about his crimes and was stripped of the title. Even when he was on the run he continued to paint creating many famous paintings. As he feared for his life the painter became more and more violent, assaulting one of the most senior knights in the order of Malta who followed him for the next 3 years and disfigured his face in a tavern in 1609. The attack clearly affected his sight and ability to paint as seen in his later works. With news that his friends were working to get him pardoned from the pope he decided to head back to Rome in 1610. He died just a few days after arriving back in Port’Ercole, Italy. The cause of death is unknown to this day but is rumored to be from lead poisoning after a team of scientists who studied his remains in 2010 found extremely high levels of lead in his bones.
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About the painting
Caravaggio had 2 versions of the medusa one painted in 1596 the other a year later in 1597. Caravaggio painted the image to be the exact moment of self recognition where the Medusa sees him or herself and is now frozen realizing what they have become. The head is completely removed from the body and completely conscious, aware of it's state and scared. Caravaggio painted this image with oil paints on a canvas mounted on a convex wooden shield. This Image is amazing at expressing emotion with the use of facial expressions and light. The Facial expressions are a little over dramatized but express a very strong emotion of horror and self recognition. The light creates brilliant shadows and make the face look real, the colours are dark enough to make the painting moody and sad without being over the top dark and ugly.
What did the The Renaissance (Baroque) do for Art?
The word Baroque refers to anything irregular or bizarre, rooting from the Portuguese word Barroco a word used by jewelers to define an imperfect or ‘off’ pearl. Created as a way for Churches to express dramatic illusionary effects Baroque created a very real and bizarre art type that was desired by many middle class citizens in the time period, this type of art was displayed on massive scales to attract people to Churches and gained them much patronage. Baroque art was defined as the starting point of mannerism for it's coexistence and combination of classicism and naturalism.
Sources:
https://www.wikiart.org/en/caravaggio/medusa-1597-1
https://www.biography.com/people/caravaggio-9237777
https://www.britannica.com/biography/Caravaggio
https://www.theguardian.com/culture/2003/jan/25/art
https://www.britannica.com/art/Baroque-art-and-architecture
https://www.artofmanliness.com/2010/10/18/the-basics-of-art-the-baroque-period/
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Camera: Canon Rebel T5
Lens: Canon EF-S 18-55mm (kit lens)
Shutter Speed: 1/100
ISO: 800
f/ 5.6