Chiaroscuro and Caravaggio
- jordancasciato
- Aug 20
- 2 min read
Hello everyone! This is Jordan Casciato at Speakeasy Tattoo located in Los Angeles county in El Sereno. As Scott's apprentice I have been studying light and its values through Chiaroscuro and Caravaggio.
Early Baroque era painters used Chiaroscuro to portray stark contrast images and dramatic style paintings. “The term chiaroscuro stems from the Italian words chiaro meaning clear or bright, and scuro meaning obscure or dark,” (Hamilton). These paintings portray one light source and focus on shadows to achieve photorealistic depth and tone. Some of the most well known painters include Da Vinci, Rembrandt, and Caravaggio.
These painters created some of the most incredible chiaroscuro paintings such as “Saint Jerome writing” which depicts a man with hard shadows on his body and an overturned skull on the corner. His face is only half visible due to the other half being covered in shadow. Another notable chiaroscuro painting is the, “De koppelaarster” which translates to “the match maker.” This painting depicts three figures, two in the foreground with backs turned and the other farther away bathed in light. The light source in this painting is a candle in the middle of the table where the three figures sit around. The two in the foreground with their backs turned are covered in darkness as they are blocking the light source. The third is covered in light with some shadows on the upper planes of her face.
Michelangelo Merisi da Caravaggio was born in 1571, Italy. When he was five his family moved to the countryside to escape the Bubonic Plague. The plague captured his father, younger brother, grandparents and uncle. After he started an apprenticeship with the painter Simone Peterzano his mother died as well. After living in Venice for a while, he fled to Rome due to an association with a murder. While in Rome he worked as an assistant to Giuseppe Cesari. During this time in Rome he completed the Amor Vincit Omnia which depicts a victorious cupid wearing dark eagle wings.
In 1606 Caravaggio killed a man and was exiled from the city. He was granted entry into Naples “While he had become well known for his use of chiaroscuro and radical naturalism, his later pieces showed experimentation with colour, contrast with the use of rapid brushstrokes from a palette that heavily featured red and brown,” (Hamilton). It is suspected that Caravaggio died of syphilis or was attacked by a group of people plotting his ambush from his troubled past.
My favorite Caravaggio painting is the “Saint Matthew and the Angel” piece. It was completed for the Contarelli Chapel in the church of San Luigi dei Francesi in Rome. However it was destroyed in Berlin in 1945 and exists now only in reproductions and black and white photos. The values specifically in the angel's hand and textures of her wings is what makes this painting my favorite.
Sources: