Caravaggio: A Life Sacred and Profane - Couverture rigide

Graham-Dixon, Andrew

Couverture rigide

ISBN 10 : 0713996749 ISBN 13 : 9780713996746

Editeur : Allen Lane, 2010

Synopsis

Michelangelo Merisi da Caravaggio lived the darkest and most dangerous life of any of the great painters. The worlds of Milan, Rome and Naples through which Caravaggio moved and which Andrew Graham-Dixon describes brilliantly in this book, are those of cardinals and whores, prayer and violence. On the streets surrounding the churches and palaces, brawls and swordfights were regular occurrences. In one such fight Caravaggio killed Ranuccio Tomassoni, a pimp, and fled to Naples and then Malta, home to the Knights of St John, where he escaped from prison following his conviction for another vicious assault. Shortly afterwards he died while returning to Rome to seek a papal pardon for his crimes. He was thirty-eight years old.

In the course of this desperate life Caravaggio created the most dramatic paintings of his age, using ordinary men and women - often prostitutes and the very poor - to model for his depictions of classic religious scenes. Andrew Graham-Dixon's exceptionally illuminating readings of Caravaggio'spictures, which are the heart of the book, show very clearly how he created their drama, immediacy and humanity, and how completely he departed from the conventions of his time.

A propos du livre

À propos de l?auteur

For more than twenty-five years, Andrew Graham Dixon has published a weekly column on art, first in the Independent and more recently, the Sunday Telegraph. He has written a number of acclaimed books, including A History of British Art and Renaissance, and is twice winner of the Hawthornden Prize, Britain's top prize for writing about art. He is one of the leading figures in broadcasting in the UK, having presented seven major television series on art for the BBC.

À propos de la quatrième de couverture

Michelangelo Merisi da Caravaggio (1571-1610) lived probably the darkest and most dangerous life of any of the great painters. The worlds of Milan and Rome through which Caravaggio moved and which Andrew Graham-Dixon describes brilliantly in this book, are those of cardinals and prostitutes, prayer and violence. The great patrons of the church competed to have the most celebrated artists of the day in their households, and the artists jostled for their favour. On the streets surrounding the churches and palazzos brawls and swordfights were regular occurrences. In one such fight in 1610 Caravaggio, a particularly violent man, killed Ranuccio Tomassoni, a pimp, and fled afterwards to Malta, where he escaped from prison, and Sicily. He disappeared somewhere off the coast of Naples in the middle of July 1610 and was never seen again. In the course of this desperate life Caravaggio created the most dramatic and original paintings of his age, using ordinary men and women (often prostitutes or the very poor) as models for his depictions of classic religious scenes. Andrew Graham-Dixon's exceptionally illuminating readings of all the main surviving paintings, which are the heart of the book, show very clearly how he created their drama, their immediacy and their humanity, and how completely he departed from the conventions of his time.

Détails de l'édition

• Éditeur: Allen Lane
• Date d'édition: 2010
• Langue: anglais
• ISBN 10: 0713996749
• ISBN 13: 9780713996746
• Reliure: Relié
• Nombre de pages: 544
• Coordonnées du fabricant: non disponible
• Personne responsable: non disponible