Michelangelo Merisi da Caravaggio (1571-1610) always moved between opposite poles. The bad boy of the Italian Baroque was at once an admired and controversial figure, a revolutionary artist of violent temperament and precise technique, a master, a fugitive.
Although celebrated for his vibrant use of colour, light and shadow, Caravaggio will go down in the annals of art history for the groundbreaking naturalism he brought to his work and his radical pictorial innovations.
From the dirty soles of feet to the sensual languor of naked flesh, the artist infused even biblical and sacred scenes with an astonishing, often visceral humanity. To this expressive creative universe must be added an intense personal biography, dominated by gambling addiction, debt, drunken brawls and even a murder charge.
This book brings together Caravaggio's most famous and groundbreaking works, explaining why this artist is now considered one of the most important of the early Baroque and what his relevance in the history of art has been. Without his work, other artists such as Ribera, Vermeer, Rembrandt, Delacroix, Courbet and Manet would never have painted as they did.
