Caravaggio in a chapel
So in a week I’ll be off to Rome, and mostly it will be work, but parts will be leisure. One thing I always do is go to St. Maria del Popolo. Partially to see the Caravaggio paintings in the Cerasi chapel and partially to see if the bag ladies with horrific smell are still there.
I remember them from my first visit, many years ago. They were praying before the Caravaggio pictures our professor had taken my group there to see. To give a picture of the professor he looked a little like Santa Claus and sounded a lot like the Swedish chef on the Muppets, and the old ladies peeved him no end. They were blocking our good view to the pictures - the very paintings he had gone there to talk about. So he placed himself at the left corner of the chapel and started talking - about lines and composition, about chiaroscuro and the use of theatrical imagery. He talked quite a lot and very loudly, all while the old ladies kept praying.
Is it possible to have epiphanies? If it is I supposed a church is a good place for them - for standing there listening to the professor drone on I realised something. It’s all very well about art, and I love art and visual imagery, but it doesn’t do much good if you forget the people. For the professor Caravaggio was all about the composition and the furthering of artistic innovation. But for these ladies the pictures were something more. These paintings told stories about sacred people and sacred things.
I began to feel pretty certain that if asked the ladies wouldn’t cite chiaroscuro and tenebroso light as the most important aspects about the paintings. Truth is I don’t know what they would answer but I suspect it to be personal and possibly religious.
And I’m starting to feel that this aspect of art should also be taken into consideration. Not just the artistic techniques or innovation, but the personal side - and the context. Above all the context. For could you not argue that a Caravaggio in a museum is one thing, but a Caravaggio in a church is something else?
I remember them from my first visit, many years ago. They were praying before the Caravaggio pictures our professor had taken my group there to see. To give a picture of the professor he looked a little like Santa Claus and sounded a lot like the Swedish chef on the Muppets, and the old ladies peeved him no end. They were blocking our good view to the pictures - the very paintings he had gone there to talk about. So he placed himself at the left corner of the chapel and started talking - about lines and composition, about chiaroscuro and the use of theatrical imagery. He talked quite a lot and very loudly, all while the old ladies kept praying.
Is it possible to have epiphanies? If it is I supposed a church is a good place for them - for standing there listening to the professor drone on I realised something. It’s all very well about art, and I love art and visual imagery, but it doesn’t do much good if you forget the people. For the professor Caravaggio was all about the composition and the furthering of artistic innovation. But for these ladies the pictures were something more. These paintings told stories about sacred people and sacred things.
I began to feel pretty certain that if asked the ladies wouldn’t cite chiaroscuro and tenebroso light as the most important aspects about the paintings. Truth is I don’t know what they would answer but I suspect it to be personal and possibly religious.
And I’m starting to feel that this aspect of art should also be taken into consideration. Not just the artistic techniques or innovation, but the personal side - and the context. Above all the context. For could you not argue that a Caravaggio in a museum is one thing, but a Caravaggio in a church is something else?