Why the painting "Entombment" was the only work of Caravaggio, which critics and the church admired

2024 Author: Richard Flannagan | [email protected]. Last modified: 2023-12-15 23:55

The Entombment is the only painting by Caravaggio to have received unanimous critical acclaim. In addition, this is the first work that the church accepted without delay and adjustments. Artists of that time copied Caravaggio's work many times. There are at least 44 known copies, one of which belongs to Paul Cezanne.

Society assessment

Even the most inveterate critics (Ballione and Bellori) admired Caravaggio's "position in the grave". With a diagonal cascade of mourners and carrying the body of the dead Christ, this counter-reformation painting reflects both a revolution in painting and a real mourning. Caravaggio is among the best artists of all time for his ultra-naturalistic approach to Baroque art.

"Entombment" is as tragic as Michelangelo's "Pieta", which Caravaggio was clearly inspired by and on the basis of which he created his own masterpiece. So the life of a baroque artist developed that art critics learned about his biography from sources of police records. From these documents, the world learned that Caravaggio had a hot temper, he could be cruel to others, he was often arrested and imprisoned for attacks. Caravaggio is featured on police records for minor offenses, such as carrying a weapon without permission, and for more serious offenses when he was involved in violent fights. Once he was even interrogated for insulting a woman and her daughter! It is inconceivable that such a talented master of painting could kill a man because of a bet and spend the last few years of his life on the run from the police. Are all these stories true? So it will remain a mystery.

Heroes

The painting is a tightly compact figurative group of six characters, including the body of the dead Christ. The upper half of the body of Christ is supported by John the Evangelist (in a red cloak). His right hand touches the wound of Christ. The lower half is supported by Saint Nicodemus, who traditionally removed nails from Christ's feet on the cross. Nicodemus is the dominant character in the painting, and his body is the compositional and spiritual anchor of the canvas. He constantly looks at the viewer from the plane of the picture, almost forcing him to intervene in the ritual. The two heroes of the mourning group carefully carry the body of Christ into the tomb-cave, barely visible in the darkness to the left.

Behind the two men - the mother of Christ, Mary, Mary Magdalene, wiping away her tears with a white handkerchief, and Mary of Cleophes, who raises her hands to heaven in a gesture of hopeless sorrow. Together, the three women represent different, complementary expressions of suffering. With this work, Caravaggio created a strikingly monumental and dramatic image, which is emphasized by a pronounced chiaroscuro.

Hero gestures

The artist skillfully conveyed the tragedy of the plot through the gestures of the heroes. It is impossible not to pay attention to the gesture of Nicodemus hugging Jesus' legs. Or St. John touching Christ's wound with his fingers. And here is Mary Magdalene, blessing Christ and stretching out her arms to embrace the whole group. It is important to note: in the work of Caravaggio, you always need to pay attention to the hands. They hide the artist's message to the most climactic moments. By far the most important plot detail is Christ's hanging lifeless right hand. Of great importance were the direction of the hands in the "Conversion of St. Paul on the road to Damascus" (to heaven), in the "Calling of St. Matthew" (to Levi). In the same work, the falling hand of the Son of Man touches the stone. And the hand of the grieving Mary gestures to heaven (she cries out for mercy). In a sense, this was the message of Christ: God came down to earth and humanity was reconciled to heaven. The raised hands of Mary Cleophe resemble a similar gesture of consent of St. Paul. Her face, the only one after the face of Christ, is fully illuminated and looks up. And her eyes seem to be looking for a divine answer to the current situation.

Composition and shading technique

If in the High Renaissance the composition has a pyramidal stable form, then in baroque art it is diagonals, and sometimes intersecting diagonals in the shape of the letter X. Diagonal composition is a very common feature of baroque art. In The Entombment, Caravaggio organized the composition so that it seemed as if the body of Christ was being lowered directly to the viewer. One of the most important tasks of baroque art is to attract the viewer. The artist gives the viewer a chance to feel at the very epicenter of a religious plot. The body of Christ looks truly dead, the figures are struggling to support the weight of his body and gently submerge him in the grave.

Another of the main characteristics of baroque art is the destruction of the barrier between the space of the viewer and the space of the painting, so the viewer often feels like a participant in the plot. Baroque painters often use foreshortening. Here, too, in "The Place in the Coffin" everything is located very close to the viewer. This is the body of Christ - so close that you can feel it and even touch it. And very close to the viewer is the protrusion of the tomb, which erased all boundaries and passed into the viewer's space.

One of the iconic moments in the work of Caravaggio is darkness. The master demonstrated complete mastery of light and darkness, using the technique of chiaroscuro to add volume to his figures, and tenebrism to give his paintings a real drama. Later this style of "caravaggism" would be copied by some of the great old masters such as Rubens, Rembrandt and Vermeer. Caravaggio painted this scene as if it took place in absolute darkness with the lights on in the figures. No background - just darkness. The impression is very dramatic. No architecture, no landscape, and therefore the viewer manages to focus on the characters themselves in the foreground of the picture. In its location, the group is compact and monumental, like a sculpture. The slightly diagonal recession to the left indicates the direction of their movement and prevents the plot from becoming static, as does the sharp edge of the stone covering of the tomb on which they stand. This stone slab iconographically refers to Christ as the foundation of the Church.

The Entombment is Caravaggio's most monumental and admirable altarpiece, painted for the Church of Santa Maria in Vallichella in Rome. The artist received an order from Alessandro Vittrice in 1601. The original is currently part of the collection of the Vatican Museum, and a copy hangs in the Chapel della Pieta. Despite his well-deserved fame as an "evil genius", Caravaggio was undoubtedly the greatest of all Italian Baroque artists of the early 17th century.