Learning about Caravaggio and his many works made me consider art from the perspective of the artist. Caravaggio commissioned many works for the Catholic Church, but did not feel a special enthusiasm for religious works. In fact, most of his works before being hired by the church were centered on secular ideas. Caravaggio enjoyed making observations about daily life. He would take every day objects and cast them into shadow, or focus light on them in different ways in order to make ordinary things seem extraordinary. His religious transformation in the art world did not really occur until his second period in Rome, when he found that he could make a living out of exploiting Christian themes.
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Caravaggio's Madonna di Loreto
Commissioned by the Confraternity of the
Holy Trinity of Pilgrims |
This bridge between the artist and his work really makes me consider Michelangelo and the Sistine Chapel. In the film we watched, Pope Julius II exalts Michelangelo's faith, as professed in his rendition of the creation of man. He states that Michelangelo must have a true and loving interpretation of God in order to create such a powerful piece. Raphael, on the other hand, argues against this theory. In an exchange with Michelangelo, he says, "Before we even begin to work, to feed this craving of ours, we must find a patron, a rich man of affairs, or a merchant, or a prince or a Pope...We are harlots always peddling beauty at the doorsteps of the mighty." Raphael seems to think that an artist's work is not a reflection on his intuition, rather it is a reflection on his wallet.
I realize that this film is a fictionalized piece, intended to entertain, as well as inform, but the movie does make some good points. Many artists in Caravaggio's and in Michelangelo's time, and even today, had to set aside their artistic ideals in order to appease their patrons. This is why, when I study a piece of art, I am sometimes skeptical
the true intentions of the artist.
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