overyourhead

Caravaggio...

Last night Drew, Paul and I went to the National Gallery in London's glitzy West End to see the current Caravaggio exhibition showing there.

It was a magnificent, albeit brief, tour of the last four years of the great painter's life when he was on the run from a murder rap in Rome.

Killing someone in a duel was not atypical behaviour from the hot tempered, violent, rebellious, tormented genius. He painted some of his greatest work while on the run and fearing for his life. Odd that.

Caravaggio's work in general is striking in that it is virtually photo realistic. However his characters in these later works are charged with emotions that seem to come from the artist's own personal experiences. I suppose in that respect he is what we might coin the first 'modern artist'.

Oh, did I mention he was a big old bender too.