Why Caravaggio was called "the painter of dirty feet": The master's most provocative works

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

Ever seen legs in Caravaggio's paintings? Definitely seen! But did they pay attention to how they were portrayed by Caravaggio? Almost all references to his heroes have a description of "dirty feet". And the most interesting thing is that their owners are, as a rule, holy people, heroes of holy scriptures. Why was Caravaggio called the "painter of dirty feet"?

About the master

Michelangelo da Merisi, born in Milan, where he was also baptized, spent most of his childhood in the ultra-Catholic city of Caravaggio. Raised and educated according to Catholic beliefs, the young Caravaggio was guided in his work by the teachings of his chaplain uncle, the man who later recommended him to Cardinal del Monte in Rome, thus formulating his vision of a world inspired by pauperism. Pauperism is mass poverty, the impoverishment of the masses due to unemployment, economic crises, exploitation, etc.

The ideology of Caravaggio's "dirty feet"

Caravaggio built an ideology that strongly opposed all these consequences of the counter-reformation, which he considered too dogmatic or far from the needs of ordinary people living in poverty. It is not surprising, therefore, that the heroes of his canvases - even if they are sacred subjects - are very similar to ordinary people of that era. Dirty, poor, hungry. For the counter-reformers of Rome (where Caravaggio moved at the age of 20), beggars were problematic and even superfluous. And all because the poor were not of interest to the church, since the religious leaders considered them ignorant of Christian truth and therefore were considered sinners or even criminals. In the Vatican, the ideology of pauperism began to actively spread, which even included influential cardinals who worked with Caravaggio or patronized him.

Thus, the naked, dirty feet on the sacred plots of Caravaggio are the feet of those who believed that Jesus, the son of God, created man and lived in poverty. These are the feet of his disciples, friends, the feet of the mother of Christ, who had both divine and human essence at the same time. Even the Augustinians, who at the time were the most influential and cultural brotherhood in Rome, recognized modesty and moderation, as well as naturalness and naturalism, in Caravaggio's paintings. The power of patronage of the artist Caravaggio was great, given that the profession of art was previously rated low. Being an artist means working with your hands, so this profession was classified as a form of manual labor, a craft, and not a liberal art, which is owned by individual talents. When Caravaggio painted barefoot saints and martyrs, he supported and united with the poor wing of the Catholic Church. He not only explicitly welcomed the poor in his paintings, making them feel like part of the same impoverished family of Christ and his followers, he also indirectly encouraged the rich to follow the example of St. Francis (a Catholic saint, founder of a mendicant order named after him - the Order of the Franciscans).

Scandalous works of Caravaggio

The presence of these grossly staged, filthy figures ran counter to the high elegance of the Renaissance and mannerism. The church at that time considered these very legs to be a symbol of the poor and humble. Therefore, it is not surprising that the priests hated their appearance along with patched clothes in paintings intended for decoration for churches. The church did not welcome the poor and the meek and did not allow them to feel that they were ultimately part of society. Vincenzo Giustiani was an influential patron and protector of Caravaggio. He was probably the one who helped Caravaggio write the second version. "Saint Matthew and the Angel" for the altar of the Contarelli chapel. The fact is that the church rejected the first version precisely because of the saint's dirty feet, his excessive simplicity. It is unheard of insolence to portray the saint as a peasant. The first variation was later acquired by Giustiani.

The Crucifixion of Saint Peter is a painting by Caravaggio, painted in 1601 for the Cerasi chapel of the Church of Santa Maria del Popolo in Rome, together with Saul's Conversion on the Road to Damascus (1601). The painting depicts the martyrdom of Saint Peter. According to an ancient and well-known tradition, Peter, when he was sentenced to death in Rome, demanded to be crucified upside down, because he believed that a person was not worthy to be killed in the same way as Jesus Christ. Both works by Caravaggio, together with the altarpiece of the Assumption of the Virgin Mary by Annibale Carracci, were commissioned for the chapel in 1600 by Monsignor Tiberio Cherazi, who died shortly thereafter. The original versions of both paintings were rejected for the same reason common to Caravaggio - the inconsistency of iconography - and ended up in the private collection of Cardinal Sannessio.

Another daring work of Caravaggio is Madonna of Loreto (1604). It depicts simple and poor pilgrims who clung to the door of the Virgin Mary. According to the canon, Madonna di Loreto is depicted standing with the Child in her arms on the roof of a house, raised into the air by angels. Caravaggio, of course, broke all the rules. The painting caused a flurry of discontent because of the unusual appearance of the Madonna, shown not in the heavenly radiance, but standing at the dilapidated wall of a wretched dwelling (this is how the artist presented the house of Our Lady in Loreto).

Two pilgrims, kneeling with their backs to the viewer, are depicted with bare feet: they are a symbol of poverty, typical in the work of Caravaggio. No other artist has ever attached such outstanding importance in the religious work of two heroes on their knees. This is one of the best works of Caravaggio, the plot of which does not correspond to traditional iconography, but recreates a real situation. The idea of painting an image of the Madonna, who looks more like a peasant woman on the doorstep of a Roman house, in direct contact with two pilgrims with patched clothes and dirty feet, is completely new.

"Madonna of the Rosary" or "Madonna del Rosario" is another vivid example of Caravaggio's ideology. The painting was intended for the altar of the family chapel of the Dominican church and marked a new stage in the artist's painting. However, the altarpiece was never installed in the chapel. After the completion of the painting, Caravaggio had a conflict with the Dominican monks, who recognized themselves in the characters depicted, which did not correspond to traditional ideas about religious painting. And here we see all the same dirty feet, in the same plot with the heavenly pure Virgin Mary. From a letter from young Peter Paul Rubens to the Duke of Mantua dated September 15, 1607 from Naples. "… I also saw something wonderful, created by Caravaggio, which is performed here and is now intended for sale … These are two of the most beautiful paintings by Michelangelo da Caravaggio. One is Madonna del Rosario, and it is executed as an altarpiece. Another is a medium-sized painting with half-figures - "Judith killing Holofernes" … ".

Caravaggio revolutionized art history in several ways: 1. Firstly, he created images of heroes in an unorthodox way - he called people from the streets into his workshop and painted them directly from nature. Caravaggio was not worried about the academic study of drawing. This led to the fact that his paintings were distinguished by striking realism down to the smallest detail: for example, if a “guest” invited from the street had dirty nails, Caravaggio embodied them on canvas. Even if it was an image of a saint. 2. Caravaggio's second major innovation was the use of light. This is what he is best known for. He used light to capture form, create space and add drama to everyday scenes.