Delphi Complete Works of Caravaggio (Illustrated) (Masters of Art Book 6) by Michelangelo Merisi da Caravaggio

Author:Michelangelo Merisi da Caravaggio [da Caravaggio, Michelangelo Merisi]
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: Delphi Classics
Published: 2014-07-05T14:00:00+00:00

Detail

Detail

Detail

Michelangelo’s Victory, now in the Palazzo Vecchio

‘Sacred Love Versus Profane Love’ by Giovanni Baglione, 1602

JOHN THE BAPTIST

John the Baptist, the cousin of Jesus Christ, was the subject of at least eight paintings by Caravaggio. For the 1602 John the Baptist, now housed in the Capitoline Museum in Rome, the same model was used as for the previous painting, Amor Victorious. Cecco, Caravaggio’s servant and possibly his pupil as well, has been tentatively identified as an artist active in Rome about 1610-1625, otherwise known only as Cecco del Caravaggio, who painted very much in Caravaggio’s style. The most striking feature of Amor was the young model’s evident glee in posing for the painting, so that it became rather more a portrait of Cecco than a depiction of a Roman god. The same sense of the real-life model overwhelming the supposed subject can also be detected in his posing as John the Baptist.

The youthful John is portrayed half-reclining, one arm around a ram’s neck, his head turned to the viewer with an impish grin. There is very little to signify that this is indeed the prophet — no customary cross, nor leather belt — just a scrap of camel’s skin lost in the voluminous folds of the red cloak and a rustic appearing ram, which is also unconventional, as John the Baptist’s animal was traditionally the lamb, marking his greeting of Christ as the ‘Lamb of God come to take away the sins of mankind’. The ram was often employed in art as a symbol of lust, implying a sacrifice to desire. Interestingly, the pose adopted by the model is a clear imitation of the posture adopted by one of Michelangelo’s famous ignudi on the ceiling of the Sistine Chapel, painted 1508-1512, once again underlining Caravaggio’s devotion to that artist. The role of these gigantic male nudes in Michelangelo’s depiction of the world before the Laws of Moses has always been unclear, with some art historians believing them to be angels, while others argue that they represent the Neo-Platonic ideal of human beauty; but for Caravaggio to pose his adolescent assistant as one of the Master’s dignified witnesses to the Creation was clearly a means of paying a humorous compliment to one of his greatest inspirations.

The composition proved immensely popular, with eleven known copies being made, including one, now housed in the Doria Pamphilj Gallery in Rome, recognised by scholars as being by Caravaggio’s own hand.

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