The Lost Painting: The Quest for a Caravaggio Masterpiece

Amazon.com

In 1992 a young art student uncovered a clue in an obscure Italian archive that led to the discovery of Caravaggio's original The Taking of the Christ, a painting that had been presumed lost for over 200 years. How this clue--a single entry in an old listing of family possessions--led to a residence in Ireland and the subsequent restoration of this Italian Baroque masterpiece is the subject of this brisk and enthralling detective story. The Lost Painting reads more like a historical novel than art history, as Harr smoothly weaves several narratives together to bring the story alive. Though he does not provide an in-depth examination of the painting itself--the book is not aimed specifically at art experts--Harr does include many details for lay readers about restoration, the various methods used to track artwork through history, how originals are distinguished from copies, and an inside view of the art world, past and present. He also discusses various forensic approaches, including X ray, infrared reflectography, chemical analysis of the paints and canvas, and other modern techniques. But most of the book is focused on more primitive methods, including dogged research through dusty archives and meticulous attention to detail.

This entertaining book boasts an engaging cast of characters, all of whom are inflicted with the "Caravaggio disease," including some of the foremost Caravaggio scholars in the world, persistent students, obsessive restorers, and most of all, the artist himself. Mercurial, supremely gifted, and prone to violence, Caravaggio lived like an outlaw and a pauper most of his troubled life. Yet even when he attained wealth and fame--and briefly, respectability--he was still hounded by the law (for murder) and numerous vengeful enemies. Harr does an admirable job of bringing the man alive in these pages while keeping his long-lost painting at the center of the action. --Shawn Carkonen

Book Description

An Italian village on a hilltop near the Adriatic coast, a decaying palazzo facing the sea, and in the basement, cobwebbed and dusty, lit by a single bulb, an archive unknown to scholars. Here, a young graduate student from Rome, Francesca Cappelletti, makes a discovery that inspires a search for a work of art of incalculable value, a painting lost for almost two centuries.

The artist was Caravaggio, a master of the Italian Baroque. He was a genius, a revolutionary painter, and a man beset by personal demons. Four hundred years ago, he drank and brawled in the taverns and streets of Rome, moving from one rooming house to another, constantly in and out of jail, all the while painting works of transcendent emotional and visual power. He rose from obscurity to fame and wealth, but success didn’t alter his violent temperament. His rage finally led him to commit murder, forcing him to flee Rome a hunted man. He died young, alone, and under strange circumstances.

Caravaggio scholars estimate that between sixty and eighty of his works are in existence today. Many others–no one knows the precise number–have been lost to time. Somewhere, surely, a masterpiece lies forgotten in a storeroom, or in a small parish church, or hanging above a fireplace, mistaken for a mere copy.

Prizewinning author Jonathan Harr embarks on an spellbinding journey to discover the long-lost painting known as The Taking of Christ–its mysterious fate and the circumstances of its disappearance have captivated Caravaggio devotees for years. After Francesca Cappelletti stumbles across a clue in that dusty archive, she tracks the painting across a continent and hundreds of years of history. But it is not until she meets Sergio Benedetti, an art restorer working in Ireland, that she finally manages to assemble all the pieces of the puzzle.

Told with consummate skill by the writer of the bestselling, award-winning A Civil Action, The Lost Painting is a remarkable synthesis of history and detective story. The fascinating details of Caravaggio’s strange, turbulent career and the astonishing beauty of his work come to life in these pages. Harr’s account is not unlike a Caravaggio painting: vivid, deftly wrought, and enthralling.
". . . Jonathan Harr has gone to the trouble of writing what will probably be a bestseller . . . rich and wonderful. . .in truth, the book reads better than a thriller because, unlike a lot of best-selling nonfiction authors who write in a more or less novelistic vein (Harr's previous book, A Civil Action, was made into a John Travolta movie), Harr doesn't plump up hi tale. He almost never foreshadows, doesn't implausibly reconstruct entire conversations and rarely throws in litanies of clearly conjectured or imagined details just for color's sake. . .if you're a sucker for Rome, and for dusk. . .[you'll] enjoy Harr's more clearly reported details about life in the city, as when--one of my favorite moments in the whole book--Francesca and another young colleague try to calm their nerves before a crucial meeting with a forbidding professor by eating gelato. And who wouldn't in Italy? The pleasures of travelogue here are incidental but not inconsiderable." --The New York Times Book Review

"Jonathan Harr has taken the story of the lost painting, and woven from it a deeply moving narrative about history, art and taste--and about the greed, envy, covetousness and professional jealousy of people who fall prey to obsession. It is as perfect a work of narrative nonfiction as you could ever hope to read." --The Economist

Customer Reviews:

Intriguing Art Mystery.......2007-08-25

As an earlier reviewer noted, many scholars acknowledge that there probably are several missing Caravaggio masterpieces lying about forgotten and neglected.

And, indeed, just as I began reading this book, a November 2006 news report announced that a painting owned by Queen Elizabeth II had been revealed to be a lost work by the Italian master Caravaggio.

The picture, which has been in the Royal Family's possession for about 400 years, had been dismissed as a copy, being obscured by varnish and dirt. It had been left in a storeroom at Hampton Court for decades until experts from the Royal Collection set about restoring the piece. After they spent six years studying the painting, they announced that is "The Calling Of Saints Peter and Andrew", a genuine Caravaggio and one of only 50 surviving canvases by the 17th century artist.

Reports estimated the painting, which was first bought by Charles I, sold and then reacquired by Charles II, could be worth more than £50 million --$100 million at current exchange rates!

Reads like a mystery........2007-07-04

I wasn't sure if this was fact or fiction. It reads like a mystery story. It grabs you, and keeps you intrigued throughout. It's a kick to learn that it's all true! Great read!

interesting and mysterious.......2007-01-09

I love historical fiction and this book was just marvelous. Mr. Harr does an excellent job of describing the landscapes of Italy and Great Britain, plus he seemelessly weaves art history instruction into the story. A must read for art fans!

Should have been good, but it wasn't........2007-01-03

This was a disappointment. The hunt for a lost Caravaggio, the digging about in archives, the scientific test to see "is it really?", should be fascinating. But it's not. And I cannot stand non-fiction writers who think they have to make their books read like fiction. Where is the critical analysis? Where is the index? Where are the footnotes? Non-fiction needs references. You cannot expect me to believe what you are writing unless you tell me where you got the information. A bibliography and acknowledgements don't cut it.

I'm seeing this more and more in non-fiction and it drives me right up the wall.

And who the heck had the idea of publishing a book about a Caravaggio painting with NO, I repeat NO, illustrations?

Art History made interesting.......2006-12-13

I admit that I am no art history scholar nor am I interested in becoming one. Before reading this book I had no idea who Caravaggio was and why I should care about him. This book opened up the exciting world of art history for me. It follows various scholars, and art restorers in the search for a lost painting by Caravaggio.
It is a fascinating look at how art historians follow the trails of paintings, how they study them and the world in which they live. It also gives you an inside look at art restoration and how difficult and consuming it can be. The book is an excellent snapshot of the art history world and if you would like a taste of it I think this is the book for you. The book jumps around a lot but it is a quick and entertaining read.

Caravaggio: Painter of Miracles (Eminent Lives)

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H&J Bailey
The Sinner-Saint
A brief life with no new insights
A good book.....
Great overview for the non Art professional

Caravaggio: Painter of Miracles (Eminent Lives)
Francine Prose
Manufacturer: Eminent Lives
ProductGroup: Book
Binding: Hardcover

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ASIN: 0060575603
Release Date: 2005-10-04

Book Description

Francine Prose's life of Caravaggio evokes the genius of this great artist through a brilliant reading of his paintings. Caravaggio defied the aesthetic conventions of his time; his use of ordinary people, realistically portrayed—street boys, prostitutes, the poor, the aged—was a profound and revolutionary innovation that left its mark on generations of artists. His insistence on painting from nature, on rendering the emotional truth of experience, whether religious or secular, makes him an artist who speaks across the centuries to our own time.

Born in 1571 near Milan, Michelangelo Merisi (da Caravaggio) moved to Rome when he was twenty-one years old. He became a brilliant and successful artist, protected by the influential Cardinal del Monte and other patrons. But he was also a man of the streets who couldn't seem to free himself from its brawls and vendettas. In 1606 he fled Rome, apparently after killing another man in a dispute. He spent his last years in exile, in Naples, Malta, and Sicily, at once celebrated for his art and tormented by his enemies. Through it all, he produced masterpieces of astonishing complexity and power. Eventually he received a pardon from the Pope, only to die, in mysterious circumstances, on the way back to Rome in 1610.

Francine Prose presents the brief but tumultuous life of one of the greatest of all painters with passion and acute sensitivity.

Customer Reviews:

H&J Bailey.......2007-05-13

We purchased "Caravaggio: Painter of miracles" in preparation for a tour to ITALY dedicated to the works of Caravaggio that we found in Rome, Naples and Florence. It was an excellent preparation.
Excellent sketch of Caravaggio's life, and overview of his opus. The author's clear and aggressive prose fits Caravaggio to a T. The text was easily read and exciting in it's coverage of things Caravaggio.
I recommend the book to any person interested in Caravaggio and I intend to pursue other works by the author Francine Prose.

The Sinner-Saint.......2007-02-28

Francine Prose's "Caravaggio: Painter of Miracles" is part of a series of short biographies called "Eminent Lives" in which famous authors write about great historical figures. The aim of the series is not be produce scholarly or definitive works; instead it is to offer the reader a gateway into the works and importance of the subject to inspire further exploration and thought.

Francine Prose is best-known as a novelist. She offers in this book an elegant short guide to the great Italian painter Michelangelo Merisi da Caravaggio (1573 -- 1610). Caravaggio's story is one of the most romantic and tantalizing in art. He moved to Rome as a young man of 21 and established his reputation as a painter of importance, turning early in his career to paintings of religious themes. But Caravaggio's life was tumultuous, violent, and brutal. He was never without his dagger, even when he slept. He brawled and fought and consorted with the low life of Rome, and was forced to flee the city after killing a man in a dispute that involved a bet over a game of tennis. In exile, Caravaggio continued to live violently, to flee from place to place, and to paint masterpieces. Prose captures the tension between Caravaggio's tortured life and his artistry. She writes:

"The life of Caravaggio is the closes thing we have to the myth of the sinner-saint, the street tough, the martyr, the killer, the genius -- the myth that, in these jaded and secular times, we are almost ashamed to admit that we still long for, and need. .. Each time we see his paintings, we are reminded of why we still care so profoundly about this artist who continues to speak to us in his urgent, intimate language, audible centuries after the voices of his more civilized, presentable colleagues have fallen silent". (p. 13)

Prose did not get me very far into Caravaggio's life. She is much more successful in describing the paintings, which she does in good detail for a short book. The book includes 11 color plates of some of Caravaggio's masterpieces, from the beginning to the end of his career. Prose has helpful things to say in helping the reader to understand these works and the circumstances of their creation -- she helps the nonspecialist learn to look at and respond to a painting. I found her especially good in discussing Caravaggio's paintings of the "Calling of Saint Matthew" -- where she eloquently shows the artist depicting a conversion experience -- and its companion work, "The Martyrdom of Saint Matthew." Prose also discusses well many paintings that are not reproduced in the book. In order to get the most from these discussions, the reader will need to find these paintings in another source -- this book has as its goal, after all, encouraging further exploration of Caravaggio.

Prose finds Caravaggio's greatness lies in his honesty, directness, and naturalism. She stresses how is works communicate directly with the viewer. Prose also emphasizes how Caravaggio used common people and places and the tough street life with which he was familiar in his paintings, including the use of rough laborers, common dwellings, gypsies, and prostitutes. Caravaggio's work combined elements of violence and low life with deep spirituality as he explored the mysteries of faith, conversion experiences,loneliness, and martyrdom. Caravaggio's brilliance as a painter, and the highly modern tension his work suggests between the spiritual and the mundane, are reasons why many people will continue to be fascinated by his work.

Prose's book doesn't capture fully the reasons why Caravaggio's work continues to live and to move people. But her book will encourage reflection upon and further exploration of the work of this great and troubled artist.

Robin Friedman

A brief life with no new insights.......2006-12-08

Francine Prose writes well and with a light ironic touch but this slim volume adds little to what we already know about Caravaggio. At a little over 100 pages and with only a handful of color illustrations the book amounts to little more than an extended essay of Ms. Prose's reactions to Caravaggio's major works. There are very many better books showing the paintings and Prose doesn't go into the camera obscura technique that Caravaggio undoubtedly used, giving his paintings an almost photo-realistic representation of his subjects.

That Michelangelo Merisi da Caravaggio was a brawler with a passion for picking fights worthy of "Fight Club" who combined erratic behavior with some sublime paintings is hardly an insight. A much better treatment of the life and psychology of the artist appears in Peter Robb's 1998 "M: The Man who Became Caravaggio" which curiously is unreferenced by Prose.

Although Prose notes that Caravaggio broke away from the stylized poses and unearthly lighting of the mannerists, I don't think she clearly explains his genius.

A good book............2006-11-03

This was a good book because it made me curious about Caravaggio. I subsequently bought another book that was a much more thorough biography of Caravaggio.

Great overview for the non Art professional.......2006-06-10

A great little book that covers what is known about a true bad boy of art, a tormented genius that challenged the accepted art of his time and changed the direction of painting, not something lightly done in those times. For this he was applauded, sought out, paid very well; he respond with bad judgment and madness. This book hits all the highlights and story points a non-art professional would want with being bogged down in too much 'art philosophy' that books on artists sometime drop into making it hard for an amateur to wade through. This is an excellent intro to Caravaggio. You should read this and then follow it up with The Lost Painting: A Quest For A Caravaggio Masterpiece, the amazing and true story of how one of Caravaggio's lost paintings was found in the 1990s.

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The Holy Sinner
A Brillant Concise Biography
Caravaggio is Caravaggio
you'll love it.
Interesting Account of Caravaggio and his works

Caravaggio: A Passionate Life
Desmond Seward
Manufacturer: William Morrow & Company
ProductGroup: Book
Binding: Hardcover

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ASIN: 0688150322

Amazon.com

Historian Desmond Seward has written an indispensable book on Caravaggio--equally balanced and historically double-checked. But even with all its references, dates, names, quotes, and careful scholarship, this biography reads like a novel that is impossible to put down. Caravaggio, of course, with his "wild, wild spirit" and "very strange temper," according to contemporary accounts, is a natural subject for a galloping narrative. Caravaggio's religious and social status as a Knight of Malta, his protection by a famous cardinal, his street fighting, his fine silk clothes worn until they rotted away, his prostitute models and lowlife friends, his repeated failure to win a commission for St. Peter's, and his bitterness at the rise of mediocre rivals are just some of the ingredients of this good read.

What Seward does, to riveting perfection, is convey 16th-century life to the reader. He takes Caravaggio's renowned naturalism and shows us where it came from. He transports readers to Rome in the 1590s, where they explore the old stones of the ancient empire, step over the human excrement in the streets, and witness the pageantry of luxurious horse-drawn carriages promenading through the mud. Readers lurk with Seward in the darkness, light lamps and candles, and feel the damp as the Tiber rises, leaving behind more than a thousand corpses when it finally recedes after a terrible flood. They stand in the crowd and watch as the heads and bodies of decapitated criminals are quartered and hoisted on spears and ramparts for display. Gradually readers get the feeling that Caravaggio's predilection for severed heads was less the product of a tormented imagination than it was simply all in a day's observation for an unwavering realist. --Peggy Moorman

Book Description

Michael Angelo da Caravaggio (1571-1610) had an amazingly colorful and adventurous career, full of dramatic contrasts. He was a religious artist who used prostitutes and castrati as his models; a mystic with a police record; the favorite of Cardinals and the Pope's portrait painter, who committed a murder; an outlaw from the Roman hills, lionized at Naples; a Knight of Malta imprisoned in a Maltese dungeon; hunted by hired assassins in a vendetta with an unknown enemy; horribly disfigured by sword cuts in a Neapolitan brothel. Ironically, he died on a lonely Tuscan beach after receiving a pardon that would have allowed him to become an even greater painter.

Based on the latest research, but largely written as an adventure story, the book concentrates on the man and his personality, without neglecting the artist. It vividly re-creates his life in early Baroque Italy and as a "monk of war" on Malta.

Customer Reviews:

The Holy Sinner.......2006-06-07

I am fascinated by the combination in one person, of great creativity, in the service of religious ideals, with uncontrolled sexuality, violence and criminality, and depression. The relationship between these two extremes may be the modern temperament writ large. Thus, in the company of many people, I have long been interested in the art and character of the great Italian baroque artist, Michelangelo de Caravaggio (1571 -- 1610). Desmond Seward's short and readable biography, "Caravaggio: A Passionate Life" (1998) offers a good overview of a remarkable artist and deeply flawed and troubled person. Seward is an English historian who has written on the medieval and renaissance periods. He is a member of the Knights of Malta, as was Caravaggio for a brief time; and Seward's religious perspective undoubtedly has much to do with how he sees the artist. I was not convinced by parts of Seward's understanding of his subject. But he presents his materials well with room for his readers to disagree.

Caravaggio was born in the small Italian village for which he is named, and his father died a victim of the plague early in life. From 1588 -1592 he served an apprenticeship as a painter in Milan but fled to Rome, most likely as a result of killing a policeman. In Rome, Caravaggio ultimately received recognition for his extraordinary paintings but was forced to flee the city in 1606 after killing a man named Tommasoni in a duel. (He had earlier accumulated a long police record in Rome.) He received a dispensation to join the Knights of Malta but was expelled and forced to flee after another duel in which he severely wounded a superior in the Order. Caravaggio had strong defenders in Rome, greatly aware of his extraordinary gifts, and received a papal pardon. But, knowing that he had been pardoned, in 1610 Caravaggio died a miserable death en route to Rome after drinking contaminated water. During his years in Rome and thereafter, Caravaggio was an astonishing painter, creating many masterworks, mostly on religious themes. Many of his works have been lost, but some have resurfaced in recent years.

Seward gives a brief treatment of the little that is known about Caravaggio's life and makes an effort to separate knowledge from speculation in the original source material. He does a good job in putting the artist's life in the context of the Italy of his day, with its many states, cultures of endemic and pervasive violence, and susceptibility to natural disasters, such as floods, and plagues. He also discusses effectively the counter-reformation in the Catholic Church; and he places Caravaggio's paintings squarely within the goals and religious outlook of the attempt to revitalize Catholicism from the challenges of Protestantism. For all the violence and difficulties in his life, Seward stresses, Caragaggio never had doctrinal difficulties that might have interested the Inquisition.

Seward also discusses Caravaggio's major paintings (the book includes good color reproductions of 16 of them) emphasizing their naturalism -- Caragaggio's attempt to paint people and things as they were -- and, increasingly, their mysticism and religiosity. He is good at pointing out the violence in many of the paintings -- especially the scenes of beheadings -- and their use of light and of dark shadings. Seward is far less convincing on issues of sexuality. He is dismissive on issues of eroticism in Caravaggio's art, and on the artist's likely bisexual or homosexual orientation. The historical record may be sparse, but many viewers have found compelling evidence of eroticism in the paintings -- including the paintings reproduced in his book. Seward properly emphasizes, I think, the religious, mystical nature that finds expression in Caravaggio's art, but he downplays the violent, demonic, and sexual nature of the artist. Thus, while he properly subtitles his book "A Passionate Life", he gives the reader less than the whole of it.

As Seward points out, in many respects Caravaggio, with his great talent and equally great human flaws, is the prototype of the modern antihero. Undoubtedly, this combination accounts for much of the fascination the artist and his works continue to exert. Seward's book sets the stage for considering the tortured relationship between Caravaggio's life and his art; but in the end he fails to do his subject complete justice.

Robin Friedman

A Brillant Concise Biography.......2004-10-02

It is no secret among my friends that Michelangelo Merisi da Carvaggio is among my favorite painters. Because Caravaggio's paintings have a narrative quality, an almost universal appeal and real drama, they have long spoken to me. When the National Gallery of Ireland loaned its newly discovered Caravaggio - one of the best and notably, one that hasn't suffered at the hands of overzealous restorers of past centuries - to our own National Gallery of Art, I flew to Washington to see it. Even hanging in the gallery of Baroque masterpieces, it stood out as a sublime work of art. Like his paintings, Caravaggio's life was a study in contrasts. While he painted soaring religious masterpieces, he lived his life in the gutter, fighting, killing, gambling and whoring. So, enjoying his work as much as I do, it is with pleasure that I share a elegantly crafted, well-written little monograph titled "Caravaggio: A Passionate Life." The author, Desmond Seward, is not an art historian but a historian of the Middle Ages and because of the number of art historians with an agenda; this is almost certainly a good thing...instead of being filled with jargon or far fetched theories, he has provided readers with a consise, well-written monograph on a epoch creating artist!

Caravaggio is Caravaggio.......2002-10-14

Any biography of Caravaggio is bound to be immensely interesting because he was far from ordinary, someone who will never fail to shock and amuse modern readers. While several reviews I have read complain about the brevity of the book, I found its length appropriate-it did the artist justice without bogging the reader down with too much analysis and irrelevant details. It assumes some familiarity with Italy and European history, but it has several chapters devoted solely to discussing the time period, while always making a connection to Caravaggio's life. I found it particularly nice that nearly all of Caravaggio's paintings were discussed and analyzed within the biography. The book has several copies of paintings inserted in its middle, but lacks the majority. Therefore, I found it incredibly helpful to have my Caravaggio anthology nearby so that I could follow the author's discussions. Undoubtedly, anyone that is not a Caravaggio fan would find these sections tremendously boring, but I loved the opportunity to pore over his paintings with a new understanding of their significance and context.

you'll love it........2000-03-18

This may be the best of the new Caravaggio books. As a painter and a student of art history, I found this book by Seward to be absolutely absorbing. Seward not only gives insight about Caravaggio's life, but also delves into the events that may have inspired his paintings. Please read this exciting book!

Interesting Account of Caravaggio and his works.......1999-11-25

Firstly an admission, I had no prior knowledge of Caravaggio or his paintings. My main area of interest is military history but after seeing the beautiful cover on this book I picked it up and browsed through the wonderful colour plates. I had to have the book to read and after ordering it from Amazon.com and sat and waited. It was worth the wait! I enjoyed the story of this most interesting man, yes its a bit short (200 odd pages) but to a person like me who had no prior knowledge or interest in this subject it filled a gap in my education. This was an interesting book to read and I just loved the colour plates of the artists work (16 colour pictures). The book has sparked an interest to learn more of this man, his times and his art. For that alone the book was worth it and the author has done his job. I would recommend this book for those who want to learn a little bit more about this man and his art.

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a very impressive book
Is the world flat ?
Pure Imagination
A Superlative Read!
A thrilling story and a great art book

M : The Man Who Became Caravaggio
Peter Robb
Manufacturer: Picador
ProductGroup: Book
Binding: Paperback

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ASIN: 0312274742

Book Description

As presented here with "blood, and bone and sinew" (Times Literary Supplement), the story of Caravaggio is the story of a wild and tempestuous life that was a provocation to a culture in a state of siege.The end of the sixteenth century was marked by the Inquisition and Counter-Reformation, a background of ideological war against which, despite all odds, brilliant feats of art and science were achieved.No artist captured the dark, violent spirit of the time better than Caravaggio, variously known as Marisi, Moriggia, Merigi, and sometimes, simply M.As art critic Robert Hughes has said, "There was art before him and art after him, and they were not the same."AUTHORBIO: PETER ROBB was born in Australia and has lived in Naples and Southern Italy for most of the past two decades.His first book, Midnight in Sicily, was a New York Times Notable Book and a New York Public Library Book of the Year.REVIEW: "It is clear that Caravaggio is Robb's oyster, and he makes him ours too." (The Boston Globe)REVIEW: "Partisan, sharply personal, and well worth reading." (The Wall Street Journal)REVIEW: "His biography....comes across almost like an eyewitness account.His commentaries on the paintings convey a kind of informed passion in confrontation with genius....his account achieves both intimacy and vibrancy because of the richness of layering, its nonstop accumulation of analyzed detail." (Richard Bernstein, New York Times)REVIEW: "Robb's ambitions are lofty and, plainly put, it is hard not to be seduced by his prose." (The Washington Post)REVIEW: "Passionate, perceptive....[Robb] succeeds brilliantly in bringing to life one of the handful of figures in art history whose genius blazed so brightly that it illuminated an entire age and changed forever the course of European art." (The Baltimore Sun)REVIEW: "That rarest of hybrids, a cerebral thrill ride, and its indulgences are more than balanced by the brilliance of insight." (The Village Voice)REVIEW: "A feast of art appreciation, storytelling, and witty speculation." (Bookpage)REVIEW: "Just as Caravaggio took art to the edge, Robb takes biography there." (Publishers Weekly)

Customer Reviews:

a very impressive book.......2007-09-03

Even though the historical part of the book seems to be disputable, the part devoted to M.'s paintings is extremely well written. The broad public needs more books like this one. The book was written with skill and true passion.

Is the world flat ?.......2006-09-29

It might have appeared so in Carravagio's day but like Robb, he was not intimidated by so called dusty 'scholars' and 'fusspots'. Carravagio's 'style' and his rejection of the establishment are what make his work so interesting today. There is no doubt Carravagio's work was wildly controversial in his time. Robb dissects the evidence, such as it is, and invites conclusions in a direct manner from the reader. The fact that Robb's book has drawn a response from `noted historians', 'grammar nerds' and other sundry 'desk polishers' is a credit to the work. Carravagio, if he were around today might give a wry twinkle of a smile to one of his subjects.

Robb includes well-selected and compelling illustrations in the book to aid his view. He does not mess around. Robb goes straight for the aorta of the reader. Carravaggio wasn't popular with his recklessness and Robb has a get there quick style that leaves the scholars and critics in his dust.

Hitler said, " A man with no sense of history is a man with no ears". Robb has a sense of history in spades. So called 'historians' and flat-earthers will no doubt continue to criticise, like the Vatican in Carravaggio's day. Gallileo had imagination, so does Robb. The earth was not flat. Gallileo was right. The Vatican and its legions of scholars, scribes and `dust collectors' were wrong. Read the book. Ignore the pseudo intellectuals. *****

A Masterpiece.

Pure Imagination.......2006-01-08

As Amazon organizes reviews by date, the sole review (writen by noted Caravaggio scholar David Stone) which attacks this book for its unscholarly tendency to unashamedly make things up is buried deep on the last page. Therefore, I thought I'd add another to make this fact a little more visible to the casual shopper. A few others have noted the appalling grammar and syntax, but the real crime is the baselessness of Robb's conclusions. Does no one care about evidence any more? Do none of you who loved this book find anything wrong with Robb's practice of examining complex, vague, and contradictory sources, choosing the most dramatic answer possible, and presenting it as an irrefutable truth? Caravaggio was an unconventional, brilliant man who lived a wild and crazy life--stick with the evidence and you'll still be amazed.

A Superlative Read!.......2005-09-26

This book has it all - erudition, polemics, irreverence, controversy, intrigue, irony, eroticism, romance, depravity... the list is endless! Meticulously researched and annotated, soundly argued and reasoned, Mr. Robb is a gracious champion to the very complex artist who is historically reduced to a one-dimensional churl who happened to have a way with a paint-brush.

Caravaggio was a pioneer (a very dangerous occupation during the counter-reformation), - the manner in which he approached his subjects, the lighting (or relative lack there-of), his refusal to sketch out a work before painting it, his perspective, his "earthy" handling of religious themes; these approaches became both his claim to fame, and his downfall. A downfall facilitated by jealous contemporaries, greedy art collectors, and Caravaggio's own sexual and social indiscretions.

Not a light read by any means - make sure your thinking cap is well positioned, and your seat belt is tightly fashioned - you're in for one hell of a ride!

A thrilling story and a great art book.......2003-01-11

Peter Robb has managed to achieve a miraculous symphony in this long (500 + pages) book: It's a biography, a detective story (little is known about Caravaggio's life), a social history of Rome, and a definitive art book. As a result, you can read this book on many levels. I read it first as a "beach book" for the story, and then again, when I took a vacation to Rome and tried to see as many of his remaining paintings as I could.

Robb explains how Caravaggio was a breakthrough painter in his use of light, and in his use of recognizable local models (almost all of whom Robb has been able to identify) to express the religious art of the day. Mannerism died at his hands.

Moreover, Peter Robb builds a credible portrait of Caravaggio's brittle personality--it's easy to see why people were out to kill him. At first I thought the title "M" was a little contrived, but by the end of the book, I realized that it's cipher for the real man behind the familiar name. (Calling someone "Caravaggio" after the town is like giving someone the nickname "Boston").

Customer Reviews:

Crappy.......2007-01-16

This is by far the crappiest books on painting book ever. The pictures are black and white and look like a photocopy of a bad photocopy. Needless to say, I returned it the next day. Buyer Beware.

Excellent Book That Lacks Color Plates.......2006-11-21

I would agree with the other reviewers that in many respects this is an excellent book. Mr. Hibbard analyzes Caravaggio's works in terms that are comprehensive, and yet not puffed up with academic hot air. He describes the historical context of the paintings, and often compares individual works of Caravaggio with similar paintings of other artists. He even points out artistic errors, such as the lack of perspective in the hands of a man in the painting Supper At Emmaus. Hibbard talks about the striking use of color in Caravaggio's compositions, and it is here that one can be somewhat disappointed with the book for, the wonderful paintings of Caravaggio are, with very few exceptions, reproduced in a dismal black and white. If you are familiar with Caravaggio, and are most interested in the author's commentary, than this deficiency would probably not bother you. I have John Spike's "Caravaggio" that is full of color plates, but it is more expensive. Although I have not seen it, I understand C. Puglisi's book by the same name also has many color plates. For the relative newcomer to this great painter, I would encourage consideration of one of these other two books as a companion volume to this excellent book.

Transcends the usual assigned texts.......2001-10-30

In one of my last classes for my degree, this book was the required text. I am awed by Caravaggio's work anyway, but combine that with Howard Hibbert's insightful text and you have an amazing book. I would definitely recommend this text for anyone interested in this fantastic artist.

A Great Book for a Great Artist.......2001-06-27

Caravaggio is one of the greatest artists of the 17th century. In a very brief period of time he managed to exert a influence over all of European painting.

Caravaggio was the original bad boy of the art world. He was willing to use well known prostitutes as models when portraying the Virgin Mary or to show saints with dirty feet. This offended authorities in Baroque Rome and Caravaggio was often a trial to his patrons. During the majority of his active career he was on the lam fleeing from a murder charge. He burst on the Roman art scene during the height of its influence and spent his last days in Malta in the company of the knights.

Although Caravaggio's influence was immense immediately after his death where his masterful use of light and shadow was immitated by countless lesser artists. For a number of years Caravaggio's reputation declined. Raphael's influence dominated academic art and Caravaggio's relatively harsh realism was in disfavor. It was only in the 1950's when a major evaluation occurred.

This book by Howard Hibbard is probably the first of these modern reevaluations of Caravaggio and it is still one of the best. Professor Hibbard is one of the country's leading art historians and he brings considerable scholarship to his study of Caravaggio's work. Although there are plenty of other books on Caravaggio, I think that this book is still the best of lot in terms of understanding Caravaggio's art (his life was sufficiently messy and his sexuality ambiguous to spur the mills of contemporary scholarship for many years). Professor Hibbard's writing is sufficiently free from academic claptrap to make it an invaluable guide to both the specialist and the novice.

A Book Of The Arts!.......2000-03-24

This is a beautiful book. As a divorced hardworking mother of 3, I spend all of my time reading this book to my children, Isaul (age 90) Gabriella (age 16) and Kraquel (age 3) I also read it to my co-workers where I work, a prositute. This is truley a work of art.

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A Book of Wonderful Pictures
A Thorough Investigation of the Genius of Caravaggio
Amazing Book about a PHENOMENAL artist!!
This is a Review of the HARD COVER BOOK
Engaging and informative

Caravaggio
Catherine Puglisi
Manufacturer: Phaidon Press
ProductGroup: Book
Binding: Paperback

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ASIN: 0714839663

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As Catherine Puglisi points out in the most beautiful Caravaggio book ever, the soulful, tormented, ethereally talented painter has become a pop icon, with a "full-blown industry of Caravaggio publications." Puglisi's book is a standout in this crowded field. With remarkable evenhandedness, she sifted through the scholarship and discoveries--and the trash--of the past 20 years and wrote a Caravaggio book that does justice to the painter's glorious work. She doesn't skimp on the juicy parts of his life, however: she candidly but coolly recounts and appraises the bits of historical evidence for his sexuality (both hetero and homo), his use of whores and ruffians as models, and his many scrapes with the law. All the while, she focuses the reader on the paintings, aptly describing such naturalistic, groundbreaking works as The Calling of St. Matthew, of 1599.

Gazing at the large, double-page color plates in Puglisi's book, it is easy to feel the erotic pull of the many early canvasses of supple youths that have been so widely reproduced in recent years. But the later religious pictures, in which the models for the saints and Madonnas still seem almost palpable in their reality, have the most dramatic magnetism. Rest on the Flight into Egypt is particularly moving. It may never be possible to unravel the tangled web of Caravaggio's life, but Puglisi manages to restore a welcome balance to our view of his art. --Peggy Moorman

Customer Reviews:

A Book of Wonderful Pictures.......2007-03-10

I did so look forward to receiving this book greedily unwrapping it as soon as it arrived. I'm a huge fan of Caravaggio and having seen many of his paintings in situ I was eager for any new information. Unfortunately I'm one of the people who can't read the small silver text on glossy white paper. When I say "can't read" I mean that within about two minutes all of the little silver words on the page just dissolve into whiteness. I agree it looks pretty but perhaps that combination of ink and paper might best be reserved for an invitation to a Winter Solstice dinner and not used in an obviously superb book such as this one. Catherine Puglisi was done a terrible dis-service in the design of this book. The quality of the photographs of the paintings (and the quantity) are fantastic and I have enjoyed them immensely. Maybe the paper version is black on white but I sure don't like to have buy the same book twice. I'm giving two stars to what is probably a five star book.

A Thorough Investigation of the Genius of Caravaggio.......2005-12-05

Dr. Catherine Puglisi is not only a fine scholar, well informed about her subject, she is also a fine writer. CARAVAGGIO is a richly produced heavy volume (hardcover reviewed) that spreads the text throughout the course of the book as each of the points about the artist's life and technique and gifts to art history is explored.

The color plates are reproduced with clarity and two-page extensions of the larger horizontal works aid the reader in gaining perspective. Multiple images of details offer close examination of Caravaggio's technique, a manner that continues to influence representational artists today.

Puglisi gratefully does not shy away from the controversial aspects of Caravaggio's life and sexuality. She deals with the facts and presents them in context with his concurrent paintings. The volume includes an exceptionally fine body of appendices that offers a complete checklist of the paintings including small reproductions of some, a terse bibliography, and a series of extracts from the myriad sources from which Puglisi extracted information.

The one criticism of this book, and it is a significant one, is the small type font in the pale gray ink selected by a designer who seems more concerned with 'making a pretty book' than in respecting the written word! But in the end this is a definitive volume about one of art history's more interesting and gifted painters. Grady Harp, December 05

Amazing Book about a PHENOMENAL artist!!.......2002-01-10

Anything showing photos of this fellow's incredible oevre would probably deserve the highest praise even without editorial guidance. But just browsing thru this one will stun anyone not familiar with Caravaggio, which is probably 98% of the populace.Ms. Puglisi interweaves the artist's life and times around the glorious color photos. The print may be a tad small,but the fact that there's around two spaces between each line of text makes it, IMHO, even easier to read than otherwise. The raw,harrowing originality of this artist are beyond description, and his life is a near match. He died violently before the age of 40...Especially recommended for those (mainly males) who may think that Art and Art History are less than manly pursuits!! (Yes there are plenty of guys out there who think like this.) Give this book, the author,publisher, and the artist way more than five stars!!

This is a Review of the HARD COVER BOOK.......2000-05-07

I picked up this book a while back when it first came out. I couldn't put it down. As a figurative artist, learning about Caravaggio is a most. Ms. Puglisi's language is down to earth. The book is extremely well presented, including the high quality plates. Unfortunately, some people have complained about the small gray print which makes it hard to read. The print is not an obstacle when you immerse yourself in the life, painting technique and history of this most interesting artist.

Engaging and informative.......2000-01-20

The lavish reproductions of Caravaggio's work here are reason enough to get this lovely book. The text is engrossing, and can be easily read in 1-2 weeks. Caravaggio's life and work are both dealt with very well by Catherine Puglisi, and the writing is quite good. On the other hand, the silvery text is pretty, but clearly not functional for people with less than good sight. The book is also on the smallish side (Phaidon does not seem to make the really huge books like Abbeville or Abrams).

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The Caravaggio Conspiracy
Peter Watson
Manufacturer: Doubleday
ProductGroup: Book
Binding: Hardcover

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ASIN: 0385170696

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One of the Best
As clear a portrait as we can hope for, currently...
Hedging as a Writing Stype
Light inside the Shadows

Caravaggio: A Life
Helen Langdon
Manufacturer: Farrar Straus & Giroux (T)
ProductGroup: Book
Binding: Hardcover

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ASIN: 0374118949

Amazon.com

Seventeenth-century painter Nicolas Poussin once said that Caravaggio came into the world to destroy painting. Helen Langdon's marvelous biography suggests that rather than destroying painting, the Milanese artist gave it a new lease on life. Upon his arrival in Rome, Caravaggio ended a tradition of Italian Renaissance painting with his radically new naturalistic style, which continues to dazzle and influence viewers today. Beautifully poised between biographical scholarship and artistic appreciation, Langdon's book provides the reader with a complex, fascinating portrait of Caravaggio, still the rebel and outsider of the popular imagination, but also immersed in the Roman world of art, politics, and patronage. Some of the finest sections of the book vividly evoke the streets and brothels of early 17th-century Rome, which provided Caravaggio with the inspiration for many of his early works. By contrast, the later sections--which deal with Caravaggio's exile and commissions in Naples, Malta, and Sicily--seem rather brief and truncated, giving the final third of the book a rather unbalanced feel. This is, however, partly due to the elusiveness of Caravaggio himself--with little direct contemporary documentation on the painter, he often slips into the shadows, evading the scrutiny of even the most persistent biographer.

Langdon's achievement here is to produce a compelling portrait of the artist that throws new light on his paintings. Here is a painter who was proud, difficult, and arrogant, yet highly intellectual in his appreciation of the changing face of both Catholicism and scientific enquiry. Written with great historical clarity, and supplemented by 42 magnificent color illustrations, Helen Langdon's Caravaggio is a worthy contribution to scholarly study of this artist. --Jerry Brotton

Book Description

A powerful and illuminating biography-the first in English in two generations-of one of the most popular painters of all time.

Of all the great Italian painters, the seventeenth-century master Caravaggio speaks most clearly and powerfully to our time. His early paintings of cardsharps, musicians, and street vendors convey his fascination with the Roman demimonde; his stark and brilliant religious paintings convey the world of the poor and the outcast and the religious experience of the individual with a directness our age can recognize.

Caravaggio lived hard and died young, having fled Rome for Sicily, apparently after murdering another man in a dispute; his life is one of the most colorful of any artist's. In this vivid and beautifully written biography, Helen Langdon tells the story of the great painter's life and times in a way that leaves the reader with a renewed appreciation of his art.

Caravaggio painted a fairly small number of works, many of them for settings in Rome, Naples, and Sicily, where they remain today; and he painted directly from human models. So the story of his life and times reveals Italian society of the period-involving powerful patrons, sybaritic cardinals, and saints, as well as street boys, prostitutes, and rivalrous painters.

Langdon has spent a lifetime studying Caravaggio; this biography, the first in English in two generations, shows us Caravaggio's genius with the striking clarity of his own paintings.

Customer Reviews:

One of the Best .......2007-02-23

This is one of the best Caravaggio books ever written. It is a shame it is no longer in print. The combination of Roman history, church history and art history along with the extensive use of art plates, provide the backdrop for a thorough look into the life of one of the greatest artists of all times.

Helen Langdon gave me the opportunity to understand not only who Caravaggio was, but how he progressed in his development as an artist. This is a thoughtful and thorough presentation. There are many excellent books available on various aspects of Caravaggio's life and paintings; this is the most complete. It is worth the effort to try to locate a used copy of the book.

As clear a portrait as we can hope for, currently..........2002-01-26

Langdon's research payed off in this beautiful look at one of the Late Renaissance's most powerful (and mysterious, and notorious) painters. Sadly, most of what we know of Michelangelo Caravaggio's life is through second-hand sources -- police records and such -- but Langdon seems to have pored through every bit of esoterica related to the painter's relation to his time, his culture, and his peers. What we get for her troubles is a portrait of a man whose devotion to religion was so strong that he would do anything -- including lying about his lineage -- to maintain a secure place as a "defender of the faith."

Sadly, the one-star review on this page has a point: many of Langdon's statements are qualified with "perhaps", "almost certainly," etc. This, however, is one of the prices we pay for any attempt to pin down an elusive person who lived on the fringes of a society which passed four hundred years ago. I much preferred this reading to, for example, Desmond Seward's CARAVAGGIO of the same year, in which the author ranted against any recent interpretations of homoeroticism in Caravaggio's sensual paintings, and even against the concept of Caravaggio -- a notoriously violent and tumultuous figure in the history of painting -- having actually earned his lifetime reputation as a criminal!

Beautifully illustrated, well documented, and written with both a sensitivity towards the subject and a refusal to let that sensitivity obscure "the dirt". ..this is a significant addition to the study of one of painting's more fascinating figures. I highly recommend it.

Hedging as a Writing Stype.......2000-04-30

Ms.Langdon has impressive credentials but the book is exasperating for anyone who is interested in Caravaggio the man. There is hardly a comment she makes that isn't qualified. The text drips with phrases like quite possible, perhaps, it may be that, could it be that, etc. When so little can be known for certain about a figure in history, why not just write a novel--historical fiction is a more honest genre and less frustrating for the reader.

Light inside the Shadows.......2000-01-02

I found this book to be very entertaining as well as educational. The author did a great job of recreating the setting of Carravaggio's life; the important characters and atmosphere of all the places the artist lived in his nomadic life. Also, I look at Carravaggio's paintings in a new light and am even more impressed and moved by them than previously. Carravaggio's was a tragic life. The author captures the sense of impending doom that hanged over the artist's head like an executioner's sword. The author did a great job of bringing the artist to life with what little is actually known about him, through records, accounts, and most of all his paintings. Through it all there is the sense of an awesome talent and fragile ego, that both humbles and angers all who knew him. I came away realzing that Carravaggio was a man of his times as well as an artist of all time.

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Critics are the Custodians of Culture
Creative meditation on sociality
It's moment has already passed
Absolutely worth reading.
"Have you read the new Leo Bersani??"

Caravaggio's Secrets (October Books)
Leo Bersani , and Ulysse Dutoit
Manufacturer: The MIT Press
ProductGroup: Book
Binding: Paperback

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ASIN: 0262523132

Amazon.com

Caravaggio's Secrets begins with the painter's supposedly homoerotic work and moves from there into a discussion his art in a psychoanalytic context. One of the coauthors is a professor of French, the other, a teacher of film, and they join many other non-art historians who have offered critical commentary on Caravaggio's work. "Castration/decapitation has left David in a state of between-ness," they write of David with the Head of Goliath (1609-10), "not only between gendered identities but also between existential violence and what Caravaggio appears to conceive of as the aesthetic consequence of that violence.... In Goliath's head, David-Caravaggio has painted his own castration."

This book is probably not for general readers, but those whose interest in Caravaggio is not fully sated by some of the other, more general books on the market will likely find their fill here. --Peggy Moorman

Book Description

Many critics have explored the homoerotic message in the early portraits of the Baroque painter Michelangelo Caravaggio (1573-1610). In Caravaggio's Secrets, Leo Bersani and Ulysse Dutoit emphasize instead the impenetrability of these portraits. The tension between erotic invitation and self-concealing retreat leads Bersani and Dutoit to conclude that the interest of these works is in their representation of an enigmatic address that solicits intimacy in order to block it with a secret.

Bersani and Dutoit offer a psychoanalytic reading of the enigmatic address as initiating relations grounded in paranoid fascination. They study Caravaggio's attempts to move beyond such relations, his experiments with a space no longer circumscribed by the mutual and paranoid, if erotically stimulating, fascination with imaginary secrets. In his most original work, Caravaggio proposes a radically new mode of connectedness, a nonerotic sensuality relevant to the most exciting attempts in our own time to rethink, perhaps even to reinvent, community.

Customer Reviews:

Critics are the Custodians of Culture.......2004-03-18

Well, at least this book, which really has fallen out of circulation and is not often-read even among students of seventeenth-century Italian painting, is still being discussed in this forum. I add my voice to the list of the unenthused. The book insists on psychoanalytic readings and imports a decidely dated 1990's post-modern vocabularly that lowers a seductive, gauzy veil around Caravaggio's paintings, but absolutely does not serve to illuminate them in any way. The last reviewer, a painter, expresses a muted disregard for the work of critics; I would remind this reviewer that writers and critics are the custodians of culture, and that the job of the writer on art is to illuminate, perhaps through description, which is a form of interpretation, how a work of art lives in the world; and the job of the critic is to make distinctions. (All art is not popular culture, subject to equalizing democratic standards.) For this clear, crafted prose -- prose that is accessible both to the scholar and an intelligent audience interested in art -- is always best. Perhaps one of the reasons this book is laregly overlooked is that written for neither of the above it has failed to find an audience.

Creative meditation on sociality.......2002-04-27

It is sad to see how this book has been misunderstood. This book is not about "art history" or even "criticism." But it is a creative attempt to affirm one's experience through Caravaggio's paintings as inventing different "forms" to relate to others (both human and non-human).

Bersani and Dutoit, in such a poetic way, challenge how we look at art in general--. We interpret it instead of experiencing it. As a practioner of painting, I feel that they wrote this book NOT from the position of a critic, who often tries to be a custodian of culture.

It's moment has already passed.......2000-04-05

I looked forward to this book with much anticipation, and readit carefully twice and I am not convinced by their argument, but feelthat in its trendiness it will not be a long-lasting addition to Caravaggio scholarship. In many ways, after only a few years on the market, it remains fairly unnoticed by the academy, and remains relatively untaught in graduate seminars. I can't image it is a book that will interest the general reader with its physcoanalytic interpretations and academic lingo. I feel compelled to give it one star in order to balance out the scales and alert prospective readers that there are those of us who did not find it worthwhile. END

Absolutely worth reading........1999-12-16

I disagree with the other reviewer -- this *is* art history. Yes, art history relies on documents, history, even x-radiography, but it is equally reliant on models of analysis and new ways of looking. Caravaggio's work has begged a critical approach like this one, and while I may not agree with the authors' conclusions, their discussion is provocative and inspiring. If you want a survey of Caravaggio's career, choose one of the many books out there that satisfy this niche. If you want to deepen your perspective of Caravaggio, and of art in general, read this book. It will give you something to think about.

"Have you read the new Leo Bersani??".......1999-05-06

Be warned: this is a seductive book. But, alas, it is not a very good one. No doubt many urban men interested in art and gay studies and aspiring to a certain intellectual milieu have already purchased it, and it is best kept in such circles. At most, one can say that it is compelling, provocative, but within the domain of art history, rather silly, and the arguments weak. As readers of this book will see, it has no base in history. If we want to know how Caravaggio's works were received by the culture of his time we must look elsewhere. If we want to know what was going on in his mind as he worked his canvases, we must look to diaries, documents, etc., and there are few. I would say Bersani and Dutoit's book is imaginative, creative, often-times shocking in its daring, but it is not art history. They do look closely. The strongest element of their argument is their description of the interplay of gazes, between the painted boys and the viewer, and between the figures in the pictorial realm. Their reading of the David and Goliath, and their theory of "between-ness," is interesting, but it is hard to believe that Caravaggio would have ascribed to such a way of thinking in his own time. For academic purposes, this book is best consulted for its sources cited, standards like Friedlander and Askew, and for its justifiably harsh criticism and commentary on Donald Posner's subversively homophobic article on "Caravaggio's Early Homoerotic works." But, in general, this book and its ideas are best kept on the coffee tables and peppered in the conversations of the work-a-days who meet for drinks at twilight: "Have you read the new Leo Bersani??"

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Age of Caravaggio
Mina Gregori
Manufacturer: Rizzoli Intl Pubns
ProductGroup: Book
Binding: Paperback

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ASIN: 0870993828

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