Caravaggio and the Creation of Modernity

Michelangelo Merisi da Caravaggio was among the great artists of the Baroque period of the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries. Considered one of the founders of modern painting, he is famous for creating a radically new kind of realistic art. He painted directly from life, without preparatory drawings, to establish a high realism in his work and a powerful and stark psychological expressiveness in his protagonists. His paintings defied conventions to such a degree that their meanings have divided critics and viewers for centuries, while inspiring generations of subsequent artists from Velazquez to Rembrandt.

In this highly original study, Troy Thomas examines Caravaggio's life and art in relation to his most profound achievement: the creation of modernity. He explicitly focuses on the inherent tensions, contradictions and ambiguities in Caravaggio's art - key areas often ignored by other experts. Structured thematically and chronologically, the book begins with an in-depth look at Caravaggio's early life and works, which establish and refine his realism, his dark settings and his subtle and clever ambiguity of genre and meaning. It describes his mature religious works that eschew the theatrical stock poses and expressions of past art. Lastly, it delves into the artist's final hectic years as Caravaggio wandered from city to city in southern Italy, avoiding the papal police after a sword fight on the streets of Rome. Illustrated with sumptuous colour photographs, Caravaggio and the Creation of Modernity will appeal to all those fascinated by the history of art and the work of this great Renaissance artist.

Troy Thomas is associate professor of humanities and art history at The Pennsylvania State University, Harrisburg.