Saturday, April 21, 2012

And so it begins

Thus begins my quest to see all the paintings by Caravaggio.  I was first introduced to his paintings when we were planning a visit to Italy.  I had just read a novel by David Hewson and the main character, Nick Costa, talks about how he likes the works of Caravaggio and how there were several churches in Rome that had works by him. So we added several of the churches to our list of places to visit while in Rome.
  First I must mention that I have never been a big fan of medieval art.  The lighting is all wrong; just not natural. When I saw works by Caravaggio, I was so struck by the lighting, it was amazing. How he had the courage to forsake the accepted lighting approach (perfect light) and portray things as he did is incredible.  Helps that he had some pretty powerful sponsors.  Even they were probably getting tired of perfect light!
  Anyway, I am using the list from Wikipedia as my starting point.  We are heading to Detroit next week to see my daughter, Marta receive her PhD and plan to see the Martha and Mary Magdalene in the Detroit Institute of Arts. We will return via Cleveland, where we will see The Curcifixition of Saint Andrew.