In Spite of a life not very long and very lively, Caravaggio is the inventor new kind of painting: the still life!
In spite of a life not very long and very lively, Caravaggio managed to mark the development of seventeenth-century painting, leads a strong interest in realism and paving the way for a very innovative use of light. The first works performed date back to 1593 and the last in the same year of death. In less than twenty years generated a wide variety of subjects, scenes and images from the extraordinary beauty.
STILL LIFE - Caravaggio marks the start of a new kind of painting: the still life. From this moment onwards, flowers and fruits represent a significant strand of Italian painting. The most famous painting is certainly the fruit Canestra (1597 - 1598) that Cardinal Del Monte gave a Federico Borromeo and today is kept in the Pinacoteca Ambrosiana in Milan. For the first time elevated to the main subject of a work, not even the fruit escapes to the realism of Caravaggio: the leaves are ruined and the fruits are corroded by parasites. But precisely because absolutely true, they leave the viewer speechless. Very interesting is also the vase of flowers that Caravaggio has included in Bacchus (1595 to 1596). The transparency of the jar reveals the stems of flowers in a beautiful play of light and transparency.
SUBJECTS AND POPULAR Mythology - One of the best-known paintings by Caravaggio is certainly the Bacchino sick (1593 - 1594), preserved at the Gallery Borghese in Rome. Then there is the Medusa (1598), commissioned by Del Monte for Cardinal Ferdinando de 'Medici and now kept at the Uffizi. Very interesting Amor vincit omnia (1602 - 1603) where Cupid is portrayed in a pose somewhat unusual. This, like many others effeminati of Caravaggio, have long made about a possible discussion of homosexuality painter, but found no historical evidence. Many are the paintings that tell of a world often ignored: the narrow streets, of people of people, boys, street vendors and prostitutes. It 'a world uncomfortable but alive and present, from which Caravaggio was fascinated. One need only recall, for example, the Cavadenti (1608 to 1609).