Customer Reviews

CARAVAGGIO

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This is what comes of reading Vladimir Nabokov's disturbing book The Enchanter; I find myself meditating on the delicate relationship between an artist's life and her/his work. I've reviewed the music of Johann Rosenmueller, a molester of choir boys, and the frescos of the Tuscan painter known as Sodoma, a bigamist who surrounded himself with pretty boys. Caravaggio was a great painter of the late Renaissance, a major innovator of 'chiaroscuro', whose work can be passionate and serene at the same moment. He was also a ruffian, a sexual rogue and a murderer.

The Rizzoli Art Classics series is a modest introduction to the artist, with fairly good reproductions, though small for a painter whose canvases were huge, and intelligent criticism/commentary. These days, of course, you can get more info and more photos of the paintings via Google, but the book will feel substantial in your hands.