I’ve always liked the chiaroscuro painting technique because of its stark contrasts between light and dark. I also like “chiaroscuro” as a search term because it seems limitless in its returned bounty.
I found a blog named { feuilleton } … [Being a journal by artist and designer John Coulthart, cataloguing interests, obsessions and passing enthusiasms]. He has a blog post simply named Chiaroscuro, proving that it is indeed a legitimate subject to blog about.
Coulthart explained that this post followed from an earlier post about shadows and art, and that he wanted to show some of his favorites examples from the masters of chiascuro.
David and Goliath (oil on canvas 1600) by Carvaggio
He chose David and Goliath by (Michelangelo Merisi da) Caravaggio as one of his examples, which is indeed a magnificent painting. Carvaggio, according to Wikipedia, was the “most famous painter in Rome” for six years (1600 – 1606).
Amor Vincit Omnia (Caravaggio)
- Carvaggio’s painting Amor Vincit, which is not shown on Coulthart’s post, but is the subject of Baglione’s Divine Love. When Amor Vincit was completed, it was an immediate success in Rome’s cultural community.
- Shortly after, Cardinal Benedetto Giustiniani commissioned Baglione to paint Divine and Profane Love, showing an angel, (Divine Love) separating a juvenile Cupid (Profane Love) in the lower right corner from Lucifer, in the left corner.
Divine and Profane Love, Baglione
- Its style was thoroughly derivative of Caravaggio, who bitterly protested at what he saw as the plagiarism.
- Taunted by one of Caravaggio’s friends, Baglione responded with a second version in which the devil was given Caravaggio’s face. Thus began a long and vicious quarrel which was to have unforseeable ramifications for Caravaggio decades after his death when the unforgiving Baglione became his first biographer.
Sacred love versus profane love (Baglione)
- In late August of 1603 Baglione filed a suit for libel against Caravaggio in connection with some unflattering poems circulated around Rome over the preceding summer. Caravaggio’s testimony during the trial as recorded in court documents is one of the few insights into his thoughts about the subject of art and his contemporaries.
Caravaggio was found guilty and held in the Tor di Nona prison for two weeks after the trial. He later killed a young man and was exiled to Naples in 1606. — wiki
I am not sure there is much more to say about chiaroscuro at this point other than its stark contrasts between light and dark.
I thank Mr Coulthart for his inspirational blog post.
La Belle Ferronniere by Leonardo da Vinci
UPDATE: I’ve reworked this post to focus on Carvaggio and Baglione only. In hindsight, though, I should mention that Leonardo da Vinci pioneered the use of light and dark paints to define three-dimensional shape which became known as chiaroscuro.
UPDATE II: Both versions of Baglione’s painting are now shown.
January 31st, 2011 at 9:53 am
Interesting. I knew I liked Caravaggio, but nothing else about him.
January 31st, 2011 at 12:44 pm
Apparently, he was ill-tempered. If you’re still interested, here’s even more to know about Caravaggio:
Infamous while he lived, Caravaggio was forgotten almost immediately after his death, and it was only in the 20th century that his importance to the development of Western art was rediscovered. Despite this, his influence on the new Baroque style that eventually emerged from the ruins of Mannerism, was profound.
It can be seen directly or indirectly in the work of Rubens, Jusepe de Ribera, Bernini, and Rembrandt, and artists in the following generation heavily under his influence were called the “Caravaggisti” or “Caravagesques”, as well as Tenebrists or “Tenebrosi” (“shadowists”).
July 1st, 2011 at 8:36 pm
[...] It was interesting. I was reminded of an earlier post basically about the famous argument between Caravaggio and the lesser- known Giovanni Baglione in Farsa di chiaroscuro . [...]