Miguel \u00c2ngelo Merisi, also known as Caravaggio, was a painter who represented passages from the Bible in a dramatic and violent way; but always within the tastes of Italian society in the 16th-17th centuries. Throughout his path as a painter, he managed to prove his artistic value. Indeed, he achieved a reputation among the various courts of Italy and Malta, despite his temperament and his involvement in various fights in Italian neighborhoods.<\/p>\n
He was a painter who managed to master chiaroscuro:<\/em>\u00a0using contrasts of light and shadow to emphasize the details of gestures or facial expressions. It later influenced many artists throughout Europe. Caravaggio was part of the Cinquecento<\/em> period, where the first signs of Mannerism[1]<\/a> had appeared, and the artist was also influenced by Baroque[2]<\/a>, a style of art developed in Rome, by the Catholic Church.<\/p>\n The use of chiaroscuro<\/em> in Caravaggio\u2019s painting represents certain areas of the obscured areas are larger than those in the areas with light. Certain scholars argued that the artist’s light effect depended on contrast, that is, in Caravaggio’s universe, there cannot be light without darkness, creating an artificial light.<\/p>\n There are two terms to describe the application of chiaroscuro<\/em> in painting.<\/p>\n The first term is chiaroscuro<\/em>, created by Filippo Baldinucci (1624-1696). It is applied to monochromatic paintings and it aims to fill certain spaces with allegorical figures, suggesting the three-dimensionality of the figure and its respective drapery based on light values -shadow.<\/p>\n Later, this term is replaced by sfumato<\/em>, which uses a procedure of optics, perspective and chromatism in the service of the pictorial area. It is a technique that corresponds to aesthetics and perceptive reality. Basically, it corresponds to a type of effects that define depth, distance, shape and volume through the distribution of layers, glazes and varnishes, which give tones in the various planes of the composition, making the passage from light to darkness imperceptible.<\/p>\n However, Caravaggio decided to create a new articulation between light and dark. The light was directed from a source, with unknown origin, and whose intensity prevents the existence of clear areas in the painting and makes the bodies bathe in an incised way, which makes the lumps and all kinds of imperfections disappear. John Rupert Martin argues that Caravaggio’s light is from an undefined source and nature and that the artist himself never uses light sources, creating a speculation that the bodies and objects in the composition are their own light source. It is basically a production of the painting’s free will within its own space. Thus, Caravaggio’s light is a denial of physical reality, using a symbolic one to define the volumes.<\/p>\n Caravaggio does not use a universal, but a \u201cnight light\u201d; that is the contours between light and shadow create deep and dark shadows, as well as intense lights, but limited in space. As such, the light must be artistic, by simplifying the contrasts of shadow and light, giving rise to the \u201clight style\u201d. There is contempt in chromaticism when accentuating the volumes, as there is the use of contrasts of light and shadow, to bring the volumes closer to the plastic effect, determining an aesthetic character of the shapes.<\/p>\n <\/p>\n <\/p>\nThe application of chiaroscuro in painting<\/h4>\n
Caravaggio’s new articulation between light and dark<\/h4>\n
Bibliography<\/h4>\n
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Notes<\/h4>\n