Caravaggio-Blogging

Today brought my first blogospheric Caravaggio sighting. Caravaggio was a mystic, a murderer, and a Pope's portraitest, who, through the technique of chiaroscuro, gifted us with perhaps the most emotionally powerful paintings of the Baroque period. Wikipedia has a decent entry. While Caravaggio's art is fantastic, his life story is of equal, if not even greater, interest. The best short biography I have found is Desmond Seward's Caravaggio: A Passionate Life, which I read when it was published in 1998. Seward is not a prose artist, but the material is more than strong enough to compensate.

The Martyrdom of St. Matthew

Next week: Gericault-blogging!