How many paintings did caravaggio create

However, he did create at least 68 years worth of paintings. The last supper, Mona Lisa, and many more. Dark background night , strong light on the main subject. Caravaggio painted in a style called Mannerism.

He is most recognized for the intense use of chiaroscuro and strong diagonal lines in his work. His work is also considered realistic. His paintings are in a class of their own, quite masterful and very moving. He worked during the late Renaissance and many consider him to be the father of the Baroque style of painting.

Michelangelo Merisi da Caravaggio was born in Caravaggio near Milan. We know the artist simply by the name Caravaggio, which is the name of the town in which he was born. Yes they did!

Caravaggio was born on September 29, Log in. Artists and Painters. See Answer. Best Answer. About 80 exist today. Study guides. Q: How many paintings did Caravaggio create? Write your answer For the most part each new painting increased his fame, but a few were rejected by the various bodies for whom they were intended, at least in their original forms, and had to be re-painted or find new buyers. The essence of the problem was that while Caravaggio's dramatic intensity was appreciated, his realism was seen by some as unacceptably vulgar.

His first version of Saint Matthew and the Angel, featured the saint as a bald peasant with dirty legs attended by a lightly-clad over-familiar boy-angel, was rejected and a second version had to be painted as The Inspiration of Saint Matthew.

Similarly, The Conversion of Saint Paul was rejected, and while another version of the same subject, the Conversion on the Way to Damascus, was accepted, it featured the saint's horse's haunches far more prominently than the saint himself, prompting this exchange between the artist and an exasperated official of Santa Maria del Popolo: "Why have you put a horse in the middle, and Saint Paul on the ground?

The history of these last two paintings illustrate the reception given to some of Caravaggio's art, and the times in which he lived. The Grooms' Madonna, also known as Madonna dei palafrenieri, painted for a small altar in Saint Peter's Basilica in Rome, remained there for just two days, and was then taken off.

A cardinal's secretary wrote: "In this painting there are but vulgarity, sacrilege, impiousness and disgust One would say it is a work made by a painter that can paint well, but of a dark spirit, and who has been for a lot of time far from God, from His adoration, and from any good thought Caravaggio's contemporary Giulio Mancini records that it was rejected because Caravaggio had used a well-known prostitute as his model for the Virgin; Giovanni Baglione, another contemporary, tells us it was due to Mary's bare legs -a matter of decorum in either case.

Caravaggio scholar John Gash suggests that the problem for the Carmelites may have been theological rather than aesthetic, in that Caravaggio's version fails to assert the doctrine of the Assumption of Mary, the idea that the Mother of God did not die in any ordinary sense but was assumed into Heaven. The replacement altarpiece commissioned from one of Caravaggio's most able followers, Carlo Saraceni , showed the Virgin not dead, as Caravaggio had painted her, but seated and dying; and even this was rejected, and replaced with a work which showed the Virgin not dying, but ascending into Heaven with choirs of angels.

In any case, the rejection did not mean that Caravaggio or his paintings were out of favour. The Death of the Virgin was no sooner taken out of the church than it was purchased by the Duke of Mantua, on the advice of Rubens, and later acquired by Charles I of England before entering the French royal collection in One secular piece from these years is Amor Victorious, painted in for Vincenzo Giustiniani, a member of Del Monte's circle.

The model was named in a memoir of the early 17th century as "Cecco", the diminutive for Francesco. He is possibly Francesco Boneri, identified with an artist active in the period and known as Cecco del Caravaggio 'Caravaggio's Cecco' , carrying a bow and arrows and trampling symbols of the warlike and peaceful arts and sciences underfoot.

He is unclothed, and it is difficult to accept this grinning urchin as the Roman god Cupid - as difficult as it was to accept Caravaggio's other semi-clad adolescents as the various angels he painted in his canvases, wearing much the same stage-prop wings. The point, however, is the intense yet ambiguous reality of the work: it is simultaneously Cupid and Cecco, as Caravaggio's Virgins were simultaneously the Mother of Christ and the Roman courtesans who modeled for them.

Caravaggio led a tumultuous life. He was notorious for brawling, even in a time and place when such behavior was commonplace, and the transcripts of his police records and trial proceedings fill several pages. On 29 May , he killed, possibly unintentionally, a young man named Ranuccio Tomassoni. Previously his high-placed patrons had protected him from the consequences of his escapades, but this time they could do nothing. Caravaggio, outlawed, fled to Naples.

There, outside the jurisdiction of the Roman authorities and protected by the Colonna family, the most famous painter in Rome became the most famous in Naples. His connections with the Colonnas led to a stream of important church commissions, including the Madonna of the Rosary, and The Seven Works of Mercy. Despite his success in Naples, after only a few months in the city Caravaggio left for Malta, the headquarters of the Knights of Malta, presumably hoping that the patronage of Alof de Wignacourt, Grand Master of the Knights, could help him secure a pardon for Tomassoni's death.

De Wignacourt proved so impressed at having the famous artist as official painter to the Order that he inducted him as a knight, and the early biographer Bellori records that the artist was well pleased with his success. Caravaggio's image adheres to the conventions of many of the artist's other works, presenting the mythological figure in a sparse interior.

In addition, the artist's pallor and sedentary pose suggest not a deity in his prime, celebrating the virtues of wine and festivity, but rather the consequences of over-indulgence. Indeed, the ivy leaves encircling the artist's head have started to wither, a few of the grapes in his hands have begun to shrivel, and the two lush apricots in the painting's foreground betray the beginning brown spots of rot.

Cindy Sherman later famously reinterpreted this painting, posing herself as Caravaggio's Bacchus, in her photograph Untitled after Caravaggio's Bacchus.

This work is one of two paintings representing the same subject matter; the other painting is in the Roberto Longhi Foundation in Florence. Here, a young boy, an example of the tousled, curly-haired youth who populated many of Caravaggio's early secular pieces, recoils in pain and surprise after having reached for one of the fruits on the table only to be bitten by a lizard, concealed among the pile of cherries. On the table, Caravaggio demonstrates his skill rendering the play of light over and through different textures.

In keeping with Caravaggio's wider style, the boy exists in a nondescript, timeless interior, with blank walls punctuated only by a stark, diagonal light source originating from the upper left, and outside the frame of the painting.

This heightens the intense expression of the piece, as it highlights the boy's bare right shoulder, raised as he recoils from the bite; his furrowed brow and mouth open in a gasp. The work is notable in large part for its striking sexual subtext. In the Italian street slang of Caravaggio's time, bitten fingers represented a wounded phallus, and the artist's inclusion of jasmine, a traditional symbol of sexual desire, in combination with the lizard lurking beneath the cherries and apples, each signifiers of temptation, suggests that the painting illustrates the perils of indulging in sexual appetites.

This work is an example of the Venetian pictorial genre of a 'concert' picture, exemplified by Titian's earlier work, The Pastoral Concert , in which artists celebrated the performance of music. This image, however, subverts the genre in a number of ways challenging traditional readings of it - it depicts a rehearsal rather than a concert and the inclusion of the classical clothing of the musicians and a winged cupid in the upper left of the image signals a symbolic intent probably linking music, love and wine represented by the grapes in the cupid's hand.

The figures crowding the image seem to have been drawn separately and added to the composition. The central musician has been identified as Caravaggio's companion Mario Minniti and the other figure facing the viewer is possibly a self-portrait. The musicians are rehearsing madrigals and the lute player in the center is transported by the music, his wet eyes and dreamy expression suggesting sadness and lost love.

The inclusion of a violin in the foreground indicates the presence of another musician. Caravaggio's patron, Cardinal del Monte, for whom this work was commissioned, was interested in music and he and his friends tutored musicians and encouraged musical experimentation. The crowded space of The Musicians may invoke the musical environment found in del Monte's household. This painting depicts Medusa, the Gorgon monster of Greek myth whose hair was made of snakes and whose gaze turned viewers into stone.

Medusa was finally defeated by the hero Perseus who beheaded her using the reflection in his shield as a guide. Caravaggio depicts Medusa taking her final breath, immediately after the moment of her beheading. Unusually the image is painted on a circular canvas stretched over a convex wood backing. This mimics the shape of Perseus' shield and depicts the reflection of Medusa's final moments in its polished surface.

It also references the practice of drawing Medusa on shields when going into battle to demonstrate victory over huge odds. It is thought that Caravaggio used himself as the model for the image and as a self-portrait, Medusa is a good example of the artist's experimentation with gender and androgyny. In keeping with Caravaggio's interest in representing the world as it appeared and drawing from life, he used live snakes, common water snakes native to the Tiber River, to model Medusa's writhing vipers.

The green of these and that of the background contrasts strongly with the red blood of the decapitated head highlighting the gory and visceral nature of the image.

The painting was sent by the artist's patron, Cardinal del Monte, to Ferdinando I de' Medici, Grand Duke of Tuscany, as a gift, and was well-received by the Medici family who put it on prominent display.

This image is from Caravaggio's first major public works commission, to create paintings for the lateral wall of the Contarelli Chapel in the Roman church San Luigi dei Francesi. It has two companion pieces depicting other scenes from St.

Matthew's life, including The Martyrdom of St. As a street brawler, his police records and court proceedings fill many pages. In , he killed a young man in a street fight and fled to Naples, where he was protected by the Colonna family. In , he was arrested and put in jail for another brawl in Naples, but he managed to escape.

In his flight from the law, he traveled through Milan, Syracuse, Sicily, Palermo, Malta, and Messina, continually receiving commissions. He returned to Naples to live with the Colonna family and seek a pardon from the Pope, and in , an assassination attempt was made of his life, leaving his face permanently disfigured.

In the summer of , he took a boat from Naples to Rome, along with three paintings as an offering of peace, seeking a pardon from the Pope. He never arrived at his destination, having mysteriously died along the way. Although his artistic technique fathered the Baroque style, he was quickly forgotten after his death.

His paintings combine a realistic observation of the human state, both physical and emotional, with a dramatic use of lighting, and they had a formative influence on Baroque painting.

Caravaggio employed close physical observation with a dramatic use of chiaroscuro that came to be known as tenebrism. He made the technique a dominant stylistic element, darkening shadows and transfixing subjects in bright shafts of light. Caravaggio vividly expressed crucial moments and scenes, often featuring violent struggles, torture and death. He worked rapidly, with live models, preferring to forego drawings and work directly onto the canvas. His influence on the new Baroque style that emerged from Mannerism was profound.

It can be seen directly or indirectly in the work of Peter Paul Rubens , Jusepe de Ribera , Gian Lorenzo Bernini , and Rembrandt , and artists in the following generation heavily under his influence were called the "Caravaggisti" or "Caravagesques", as well as tenebrists or tenebrosi "shadowists".

Caravaggio trained as a painter in Milan before moving in his twenties to Rome. He developed a considerable name as an artist, and as a violent, touchy and provocative man. A brawl led to a death sentence for murder and forced him to flee to Naples. There he again established himself as one of the most prominent Italian painters of his generation.