Part One

It was the other evening, shortly before bed. I just wanted something to browse through for a minute or two. I went over to one of the bookshelves, and pulled out an art book: 'The Complete Paintings of Caravaggio.' Caravaggio: an interesting random-yet-deliberate choice.

It was some years in the 1980s - 1982 to 1988 at a guess - when I became, well, obsessed is probably the best word, with Italian Renaissance art. I would take off on a pilgrimage to Italy annually, to gorge myself on Titian, Giorgione, Michelangelo, Botticelli, and the rest; along with the pre-Renaissance artists such as Giotto and Duccio. Something shone through - that's the simplest way to put it. I was spellbound, inspired, blown away. Sometimes, anyway. Many of the paintings would be of stereotypical, hackneyed even, religious themes; but what I could call a transcendent function came into play, which left behind the limiting context of those religious events and stories.

I came to especially love the more sensual and feminine qualities of some of the artists of Venice and surrounds. These were primarily Giorgione, Titian, and Veronese. One time I was in Venice in early March. It was so cold that I had to run along the freezing and near-deserted streets, clattering in the silence, to stop myself from succumbing to hypothermia. The churches, and even the museums, had no heating. Yet I would stand in front of a Titian Annunciation oblivious to the surrounds, simply enthralled.

Caravaggio was off the radar. This was partly because he was not a man of the Renaissance. Records indicate that he was born in 1573, several decades after the Italian Renaissance might be said to have breathed its last. But not only that. The nature of Caravaggio's work, its kind of emotionality, is a far cry from that typical of the Renaissance artists.

Part Two

I have never been an art critic, and I'm far less of one now than thirty years ago. The best thing to do is to check out some of his paintings for yourself. But one thing which seems to characterise nearly all of Caravaggio's paintings is a sense of tension and drama. If you are into new age love-and-light, he is not your man. The quality seems to be created above all by the contrasts he sets up. Much of his art is painted with a great contrast of light and shadow, or light and darkness. The figures stand out through bright light, while much of the surrounds is obscured and obscure. And it is a strange light: it comes not from the sun, nor from within the figures themselves. Its source is unknown.

Caravaggio lived at a time when the subject matter of art was frequently determined by the patron, and/or the location for which the sculpture or painting was intended. Many of the themes are taken from the Bible, and produced for chapels or churches. In Caravaggio, though, there seems to be a preponderance of violence. Crucifixions and beheadings are all the rage. Strangely, they fail to make me feel sick the way that too many medieval and early Renaissance crucifixions do.

As in art, so in life. This is distinctly so in the case of Caravaggio. He developed the unpleasant habit of getting involved in brawls and fights, and ending up killing someone in the process. Even by the not exactly love-and-peace standards of early seventeenth century Italy, his temper and penchant for violence were unusual, let us say. One contemporary wrote the following: "He (Caravaggio) is a mixture of grain and chaff; indeed he does not continuously devote himself to this study, but when he has worked for a couple of weeks, he swaggers about for a month or two, his sword at his side and a servant behind him, and goes from one ball-game to another, ever ready for a duel or a scuffle, so that it is almost impossible to get to know him." Karel van Mander, 1604. 

His lifestyle caught up with him eventually. On the run from Rome after (probably accidentally) killing a man in a brawl, he headed south and to Malta. Here he was invited to join the Order of the Knights of Malta. However, once the Order realised the reason for his going to Malta, they set out to arrest him. Long story short, the painter fled - he seems to have spent quite a lot of his final years in running and hiding. However, landing from a boat at Porto Ercole, a small coastal town north of Rome, he is arrested and imprisoned - this time mistakenly.

Because of the delay, Caravaggio misses the boat, which disappears with all his belongings on it. Caravaggio is already very ill with a strong fever; it is mid-July, and the Mediterranean sun of summer beats down mercilessly on him as he staggers in uncontrolled rage along the beach.

"Without any human assistance, he died within a few days as badly as he had lived" (Baglione). He was thirty seven years old. 

Part Three

There is a curious episode about Caravaggio in one of the chapters in 'Exit the Cave' by Howdie Mickoski. It is a story - I don't know if it is a thinly-veiled autobiographical piece or not. Anyhow, it concerns one Karl; Marie, who is a kind of Muse; and 'St Matthew and the Angel', sometimes called 'The Inspiration of St. Matthew' by Caravaggio.

Marie takes Karl to a chapel in Rome which houses this piece of art, which I include just below. The saint is writing at his desk, and seems to be interrupted by an angel who appears in the air above him. An angel bringing inspiration - or so we assume. 

Not necessarily so, says Marie. Maybe Caravaggio is trying to tell us something else. Maybe he is informing us - if only we are prepared to look - that 'angels' are not necessarily what we think they are. Not necessarily messengers from God. They might sometimes turn out to be demons, archons we might say nowadays, in disguise. Take a close look at this angel and its effect on Matthew. Is this an inspiration, or is it a distraction for the saint?

Filling in some details helps to make things clearer. This is not the original painting that Caravaggio executed of the theme. The first one was unfortunately destroyed in Berlin at the end of World War Two. Only a black-and-white sketch survives, but it is enough (it is sometimes imaginatively coloured, as below). 

This first painting was rejected by its patron Cardinal. The reasons for it being rejected were never explicitly stated, but it is fairly clear. It's all too provocative, too sexy, a bit perverse even. Not the kind of thing you want in your church at all.

The angel stands beside the saint, leaning over him, touching him. 'Whispers of flesh are seen beneath the light veils she wears' as Marie in the story puts it (the angel is conventionally considered to be male, and there is plenty of male eroticism in the work of Caravaggio; but Marie considers this one to be female). Male or female, the question is the same: is this an inspiration, or is the angel a temptress? Is the message of the angel a transmission from God, or is it an invitation to come and play with me and forget that holy stuff?

Take your pick. But have a good look first. A real good look. Not everybody agrees with Howdie Mickoski. Read about the painting and you can find people who find it a uniquely tender and properly spiritual work. As for me, I have studied it enough, and find it completely alluring, in quite a bizarre way. Like nothing I've ever seen  before. Is it the angel? The archon? The high-vibe communication? The seduction by a champion seducer or seductress? Or none of these? I don't know....  

Whatever the case with Caravaggio's painting, the suggestion is there, that angels are - or at least can be - yet another deception. They can be archons in disguise, darkness dressed up as light. And this is a disguise that attains its apotheosis in the after-life state, when they will appear as loving guides, all the while in reality cajoling the soul to return to yet another life of suffering as a human in the Earthly realm. To go back to the endless round, the not-very-merry-go-round. Which brings us right back to the trap..... 

Images: 1.Titian: Assumption.  2. Caravaggio: The Fortune Teller.  3. Caravaggio: Adoration.  4. Caravaggio: St Matthew and the Angel (second version).   5. Caravaggio: St Matthew and the Angel (original version)