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Caravaggio |
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written
by sunyuh / 10.13.2005 |
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Patron |
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Before going into the intentions of the patron, I think it is important to address the potential intentions of the artist.
Caravaggio’s Religion:
An important element in Caravaggio’s life and art is his religious and personal beliefs. During his early youth in Milan, Caravaggio must have been exposed to the groups that held concern and social interests for the poor world, and the rejected. Also, when arriving to Rome, Caravaggio must have encountered the popular theories of Saint Fillipo Neri’s. Saint Fillipo Neri was renown for his humbleness, for his heart towards the poor and youth. He was unlike the burcrats that represented the church at the time. Caravaggio may have encountered Neri, either at a hospital he was taken to when he fell in in his early days in Rome, or at Neri’s church. Neri kept his door open to the youth, and received many visitors. It is not unlikely that the two crossed paths. With this it is important to note that Caravaggio was with the people of his time, and not removed.
Also, Caravaggio had an early encounter with mortality and plague. Eventually orphaned, and the threat to his life later on, Caravaggio possibly struggled and developed a keen awareness for the world. His earlier years in Rome, strung with poverty, unstableness and fights and arrests would make him no stranger to the world and colors he depicted.
This would lead to a direct and honest expression of religion and its characters. There is a social and human conscious to his paintings, full of sympathy, yet beauty of the real rather than the embellished. His paintings are directed to the audience, and are open to individual interpretation for the individual to ‘grasp them in terms of one’s own life,’ and the realism in Caravaggio’s paintings would make it possible for viewers to relate.
His paintings were often accused of lacking decorum due to capturing dirty feet, back angles, and more humanly characteristics of saints. But Caravaggio painted life, and in it’s reality wanted to show its beauty.
Patron:
Somewhat fortunately for Caravaggio, his first public commission had no direct contact with the patron. As mentioned before, Contarelli had died before the completion of his chapel, and left the chapel in supervision for another family to complete. By the time Caravaggio received the commission, he was working with the Church overseeing the commission, rather than the patron. The patron had set guidelines for the paintings, which were supposed to be the life of his patron saint, St. Matthew. But other than that, and no longer being alive, he could not submit direct control over Caravaggio’s work. Instead, the church played that role.
For an example, the Inspiration of St. Matthew had to be repainted because a priest was horrified at the idea of standing below St. Matthew’s dirty feet, and illiterate gesture. This realistic nature in Caravaggio was heavily criticized, for humanizing and humbling the saints and other important figures. Such images were believed to be ‘lacking decorum.’ This can be an indication of a direct clash between Caravaggio’s beliefs and representation, and the Church’s control. As noted with Peter’s later addition in the Calling of St. Matthew, this can be presumed to an influence by the church and its message of its importance. Caravaggio painting solely Jesus and Matthew signifies a relationship of man and God without interference. This was probably not a message the church wanted to project.
It is hard to say what Contarelli would have done differently. He did have guidelines, but ones that were loose enough for Caravaggio to work with. Caravaggio placed the paintings in certain lightings and certain spaces (suspended, timeless) so that people could enter into the painting, and interact intimately with them. This was probably not the instruction of the patron or the church.
This is similarly true for the Cerasi Chapel. However, the patron was alive. But both chapel’s main audience was the public audience. The paintings in the Cerasi chapels had to be pre-submitted, and both paintings were repainted. The reasons remain unclear, whether the patron rejected them or if Caravaggio wanted to repaint them. But the inaction of the paintings, the humility of Peter, and the dirty feet are signals that Caravaggio was given a certain amount of freedom and flexibility outside of his patron’s guidelines.
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