Caravagism

The caravagism , or caravagesque school , is current pictorial of the period Baroque appeared with Rome at the end of the 16th century.

Characterized by the prevalence of obscure scenes enlightened by the technique of the Clearly-obscure , it is constituted starting from the style of maturity of the ''' Caravage ''' of the Neapolitan school, the principal rival of the Bolonais Annibal Carrache.

The origin

By its revolutionary direction of crowned Caravage the code of practice into substituent a simple and realistic expression with the intellectualism and the artifices of the Maniérisme changed. Its creation evolves to the meditation and the sobriety of the pictorial means. The world which he invents, monochromic and stripped, is carrying human emotions. It illuminates its characters of a quiet poetry and, sometimes humanizes the religion, sometimes sacrilizes the daily scenes. The Martyrdom of saint Matthieu (v.1599-1600, church Saint-Louis-of-French of Rome), where all the characteristics of the caravagism are found, is regarded as the benchmark of this baroque naturalist.

Characteristics

Composition in width, characters life sizes, source of light external with the table, irruption of crowned in a daily scene, empties above the characters, absence of foreground, are adopted by the caravagesques ones who paint the religious paintings like scenes of kind and begin again, in the subjects of the daily life, common peoples, soldiers, gipsies, courtiers or young hooligans carrying armours, tinsels, ribbons, feathers or musical instruments. To the expression of the characters translated by the gestures, the attitudes and the play of the glances by Caravage, they add the deformations of the face and the gesticulation. The reds, the brown ones and the blacks dominate. The light guides the eye towards essence. The color is applied went PRIMA , without preparatory drawing.

Extension

The caravagism starts with the arrival in Rome of Michelangelo Merisi (1591) and is completed with the disappearance of Georges of the Tower and Jose de Ribera (1652). Less prégnant in Italy as from 1630, it will however continue to deeply influence European painting until the end of the 17th century.

It extends in Italy (Rome, Naples, Genoa), by finding an echo, in the fabrics of Orazio Gentileschi (1563-1639) which poetize the scenes by the softness of the light, draped silky and a refined chromatism, and of its daughter Artemisia (1593-1652), in those of Bartolomeo Manfredi (1580-1620), of Jose de Ribera (1591-1652) Neapolitan of Spanish origin, or Giovanni Battista Caracciolo, said Battistello (1578-1635). One finds at these two last the style of the last years of Caravage, characterized by very dark atmospheres.

The foreign painters come to work in Rome, Valentine of Boulogne says Valentine (1591-1632), Gerrit van Honthorst (1590-1656), Jose de Ribera (1591-1652), will approach this current and will convey it in all Europe. He knows for the third time brilliances developments in Utrecht with Hendrick Brugghen (1588-1629), Gerrit van Honthorst (1590-1656), in Seville with Francisco de Zurbarán (1598-1664), in Valence with Francisco Ribalta (1551-1628) and in ducal Lorraine with Georges of the Tower (1593-1652) which applies the luminism by accentuating the atmosphere quiet and collected during its night time. The thin lighting of a candle returns the atmosphere of the mystical table. The characters give an impression of introspection, of reflection, seeming to pose silently, attentive. The coloured range is reduced to brown and the reds.

Developments

Luminism

The luminism , at the end of first half of the 17th century is a caravagism whose characteristic is in the stressing of the light in the calm atmosphere of the table. The colors become cordial with the source of light. Its principal representatives are Georges of the Tower in France and Gerrit van Honthorst in Holland; Génois Luca Cambiaso while being the precursor.

Tenebrism

In the tenebrism appeared about 1610, contrasts of shades and light are more violent one, the effect is darker. The Tenebrosi are represented by Jose de Ribera or Mattia Preti (1613-1699) and Francisco de Zurbarán during its first time.

Juan Sánchez Cotán Fray (1561-1627) and Juan Van der Hamen (1596-1631), painters of died nature, mix the Dutch influence and the caravagism.

If several painters originating in the North of France such Simon Vouet (1590-1649) and Claude Vignon (1593-1670), take part in the caravagesque movement in Rome, Paris, where already are done day of the tendencies to Classicisme, remains to him impermeable.

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