Beheaded (Roma part Sette)

Early in our Rome adventure, we visited one of the more entertaining exhibits on offer.

Think back on Part Cinque called More Mosaics - the one that included the not-mosaic frescoes we found in Saint Stefano Rotundo.  Those frescoes of gruesome acts of torture and murder of martyrs in early Christendom, painted in 1582.

Enter Michelangelo Merisi da Caravaggio - we know him as the Italian genius of Baroque art, Caravaggio. He was born in 1571, making him 11 years old when those frescoes were painted. And while there is no evidence he was influenced by these macabre frescoes, he remains an artist of some really violent subjects.

His life was equally violent, running from more than one murder conviction in Milan, to Rome, to Naples, to Sicily and Malta, then dying of disease or being murdered because of the price on his own head. We aren’t sure which. All along the way, he was producing some spectacular work between his bouts of violence and mayhem.

He is considered one of the most important artists of the Baroque Period and regarded as the master of the chiaroscuro technique, the use of light and dark to heighten the drama of his subjects.

Whilst in Rome, we spent an hour or so in the presence of 24 of his works gathered together at the Palazzo Barberini. On the tail of those horrifying frescoes mentioned above, we were especially drawn to Caravaggio’s own gruesome works.

You be the judge:

Beheading of John the Baptist

The beheading of Goliath by David

The beheading of Holofernes by Judith

Medusa, just beheaded by Perseus

The last two, especially, give us the impression they've just been done in, with blood gushing. Holofernes was a nasty dude in the Old Testament whom Judith was sent to dispatch when he was in a drunken stupor. 

The Medusa was painted on an actual shield as a gift for the Duke of Tuscany. Caravaggio used his own image as the face of the Gorgon here.

We had a great lunch after.