David with the Head of Goliath
1610 · Oil on canvas · 125 × 101 cm
The Supper at Emmaus
1601 · Oil and tempera on canvas · 141 × 196 cm
Bacchus
1595 · Oil on canvas · 95 × 85 cm
Judith Beheading Holofernes
1599 · Oil on canvas · 145 × 195 cm
The Calling of Saint Matthew
1600 · Oil on canvas · 322 × 340 cm
Michelangelo Merisi da Caravaggio (1571–1610) was an Italian painter who revolutionized European art with his dramatic use of chiaroscuro (extreme contrasts of light and dark) and his radical naturalism. He painted religious figures as ordinary people with dirty feet and weathered faces, scandalizing patrons but profoundly influencing Baroque art throughout Europe.
His most celebrated works include The Calling of Saint Matthew (1600), Judith Beheading Holofernes (c. 1599), Bacchus (1595), The Supper at Emmaus (1601), David with the Head of Goliath (1610), and Medusa (1597). The Calling of Saint Matthew, in Rome's Contarelli Chapel, is considered one of the greatest paintings in Western art.
Chiaroscuro is the dramatic use of contrasts between light and dark in painting. Caravaggio pushed this technique to its extreme, known as tenebrism, placing his figures in deep darkness illuminated by a single, sharp light source. This created an intensely theatrical, almost cinematic effect that gave his paintings unprecedented psychological power and physical immediacy.
Yes. On May 29, 1606, Caravaggio killed Ranuccio Tommasoni during a street brawl in Rome, possibly over a gambling debt or a dispute about a woman. He fled Rome with a death sentence on his head and spent his remaining four years as a fugitive, painting masterpieces in Naples, Malta, and Sicily while seeking a papal pardon.
Caravaggio died on July 18, 1610, at the age of 38, in Porto Ercole, Italy, under mysterious circumstances. He was traveling back to Rome, expecting a papal pardon, when he died — possibly from fever, a wound infection, or lead poisoning from his paints. His death, like his life, remains surrounded by mystery and debate.
This page features public domain works by Caravaggio and is not managed by the artist.
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