How many paintings did caravaggio do

Matthew Vocazione di san Matteo. Report error on this page. The Conversion of St Paul. Order a Hand-Painted Reproduction of this Painting. Click here for more. Popularity Alphabetical. Doubting Thomas. The Calling of Saint Matthew. Conversion of St. Supper at Emmaus He stares into her eyes as she gently slips a ring off his finger! The canvas is so large that the figures are approximately life-sized, hanging dominantly in St.

The oil depicts the execution of John the Baptist and is the only work that Caravaggio ever signed. He captured the moment of decapitation with dramatic flair by using lighting from the side against an inky, black background. The realism of the scene is undeniable, marked especially by the facial expressions of the figures. In fact, the realism of the painting has led some to believe that Caravaggio was influenced by the highly publicized execution of Beatrice Cenci in Rome in Another extremely dramatic and theatrical work, David is depicted not celebrating his victory over the giant, but rather lost in thought, perhaps pondering his curious biblical connection and bond with his adversary.

Another thought-provoking aspect is the fact that Caravaggio painted himself as Goliath. He had painted another version on the same theme just a few years earlier; this one, however, is much darker, shadier and more visceral in its representations. Caravaggio helped make the still-life a popular artistic genre. This painting, completed around and depicting the arrest of Jesus Christ, is today located in the National Gallery of Ireland in Dublin.

Caravaggio painted two versions of Medusa — this being the second version that is currently held in the Uffizi Gallery in Florence. The concave surface of the shield must have presented Caravaggio with a perspective challenge — one that he successfully navigated by the looks of things! We and our partners use cookies to better understand your needs, improve performance and provide you with personalised content and advertisements.

To allow us to provide a better and more tailored experience please click "OK". His career, however, was short-lived. Caravaggio killed a man during a brawl and fled Rome. He died not long after, on July 18, Caravaggio, whose fiery masterpieces included "The Death of the Virgin" and "David with the Head of Goliath," and who inspired generations of artists, was born as Michelangelo Merisi da Caravaggio in in Italy. The world he arrived in was violent and, at times, unstable.

His birth came just a week before the Battle of Lepanto, a bloody conflict in which Turkish invaders were driven out of Christendom. Not much is known about Caravaggio's early family life. His father, Fermo Merisi, was the steward and architect of the marquis of Caravaggio. When Caravaggio was six, the bubonic plague rolled through his life, killing almost everyone in his family, including his father.

According to writer Andrew Graham-Dixon, author of the biography "Caravaggio: A Life Sacred and Profane," the artist's troubled adult years stemmed directly from that traumatic loss of his family. As soon as he's welcomed by authority, welcomed by the pope, welcomed by the Knights of Malta, he has to do something to screw it up. It's almost like a fatal flaw. Orphaned, Caravaggio took to the streets and fell in with a group of "painters and swordsmen who lived by the motto nec spe, nec metu, 'without hope, without fear,'" wrote an earlier biographer.

At the age of 11, Caravaggio relocated to Milan and began apprenticing with the painter Simone Peterzano. In his late teens, perhaps as early as , a penniless Caravaggio moved to Rome.

There, to keep himself fed, Caravaggio found work assisting other painters, many of them far less talented than he. But as instability defined his existence, Caravaggio jumped from one job to the next. Sometime around , Caravaggio struck out on his own and started selling his paintings through a dealer.

His work soon caught the attention of Cardinal Francesco del Monte, who adored Caravaggio's paintings and quickly set him up in his own house, with room, board and a pension. A prolific painter, Caravaggio was known to work quickly, often starting and completing a painting in just two weeks. By the time he had come under the influence of del Monte, Caravaggio already had 40 works to his name.

Much of Caravaggio's early work featured chubby, pretty young boys done up as angels or lutenists or his favorite saint, John the Baptist. Many of the boys in the paintings are naked or loosely clothed. Caravaggio's only known assistant was a boy named Cecco, who appears in a number of Caravaggio's works and who may have also been his lover. It was an important and daunting assignment, charging the year-old painter with the task of creating three large paintings depicting separate scenes from St.

Matthew's life. The three resulting works, "St. Matthew and the Angel," "The Calling of St. Matthew," and "The Martyrdom of St. Matthew," were finished in , and together showed Caravaggio's remarkable range as an artist. But these works also provoked much consternation from the church and public alike. In his execution of the work, Caravaggio eschewed the traditional worshipful depictions of the saints and presented St.