Caravaggio’s Final Years: Naples, Melancholy, and Masterpieces
Caravaggio’s Final Years in Naples
Movement heads in different directions, with a diagonal that takes us out of the scene on the opposite side. They are not smooth bodies or envelopes, but have spots that show the beginning of the decomposition of the body.
Naples, October 1609
He lives in the palace of Constance Sforza Colonna, Marchioness of Caravaggio (returns to his origins: his father was an architect of the Sforza family and protected by the Marquis of Caravaggio).
Some of his works were destroyed by the earthquake of 1805.
In his works, he seems to return to the Roman monumental and scary but, with the Neapolitan quietism.
On October 24, Caravaggio was beaten at the Osteria del Cerriglio. He did not completely recover from this terrible attack. No one knows who beat him; it is thought that it might be revenge for a confrontation he had with a man of the Order of Malta. Since then, he asked Rome and the Pope to forgive him for the sentencing that made him flee Rome, claiming self-defense.
It seems Baglione tells us that Cardinal Gonzaga warned Caravaggio that he would soon be pardoned by the Pope. He leaves Naples for Porto Ercole but was forced to ride in Palo shortly before arriving for questioning. Without his belongings, not the boat, physically and mentally exhausted, he reached the city and died there July 18, 1610 (39 years old).
This is reflected in sadness and melancholy in the form of his figures.
San Juan Bautista (1609)
It has nothing to do with the Juan Bautista de 1600. They are united because the light has returned to tenebrism of the 1600s and focus giving on the whole figure to give it a plastic and a narrower aspect of it.
The child is totally sad in that expression, as if the staff and the ram, the symbol of the martyrdom of Christ, was not interesting. The former is the figure of the child who challenged us with his own nakedness; now that nudity is gone. That sort of loincloth covers her sex, becoming a figure of John the Baptist natural.
The contrapposto of the figure with his arm forward while being a reminder of Michelangelo and the whole composition is a high diagonal rather than in depth. Again, rare and monumental figures.
Salome with the Head of the Baptist (Royal Palace of Madrid)
Judith and Holofernes
Salome saw more modest, we can only guess their desire to the neckline that shows a breast. The light does not let us see the bottom, falls only on this angle and on the chest, passing the Baptist’s head completely in the dark, is not seen no blood. Serious faces: it looks as if he hated to see the head away from the accepted tradition (in this sense is linked to the Judith and repels you see the act that does). In Judith’s no movement, stay here.
Figures are much more static. In the biblical text does not appear old, and is often used the contrast between the feminine beauty of young women as ugly, worn and wrinkled from the maid that appears next, producing a contrast (effect of Titian).
The executioner who beheaded Holofernes resembling. Figures that are within an area and seem to emerge and sink into the deep: his mind is completely submerged.
David (from 1609 to 1910) Galleria Borghese, Rome
David is usually identified with Christ and Goliath with sin. David has just overcome sin. You can overcome sin and only needs to be forgiven. His portrait is in the head of Goliath, which only needs to be forgiven.
Comparison with David del Museo del Prado (labored, quiet and loud).