450th birthday of Caravaggio

Today would have been the 450th birthday of the Italian painter Michelangelo Merisi (also Merigi). Born in Milan on 29.09.1571, Merisi, who also called himself Caravaggio after his parents' place of origin, is considered a great painter of the 17th century. After his four-year apprenticeship with the Italian painter Simone Peterzano, he settled in Rome in 1592, where he quickly became a popular painter among the Roman cardinals. In 1606, however, he left the city after he was sought by warrant and banished from Rome for a manslaughter he had committed. He then moved first to Naples, then to Malta, where he was knighted in 1608. Caravaggio died on 18.07.1610 at the age of 38 in Porto Ercole, the cause of death is disputed.

With his art, Caravaggio opposed the style of the Renaissance and stood out for his realistic pictorial design. He is regarded as the founder of the so-called chiaroscuro, a technique of painting in light and dark, which he used as a design element for scenes. Thematically, the important artist of the early Baroque period devoted himself to profane as well as sacred themes. His influence on Roman, as well as Dutch, Flemish, French, German and Spanish painters of his time was so lasting and strong that the movement inspired by him is referred to by some as Caravaggism and its artists as Caravaggists.