CategoriesMedium and Techniques
Caravaggesque
Painting in the manner of Caravaggio: ordinary-looking figures, a dark ground and a hard beam of light fixing a dramatic moment.
No works indexed yet · 10 related artists
No open-access works for Caravaggesque are in the index yet. They will appear here as more collections are indexed.
About
Caravaggesque painting follows Michelangelo Merisi da Caravaggio, whose canvases for Roman churches, starting with The Calling of Saint Matthew (1599–1600), changed European painting. Look for figures pressed close to the viewer against a dark background, and a raking light from one side that singles out faces, hands and folds. The models are ordinary people, with dirty feet, and scenes stop at the most dramatic instant.
Painters in Rome absorbed the manner quickly: Orazio Gentileschi; his daughter Artemisia, whose Judith Slaying Holofernes (about 1620) is one of its most forceful statements; and Bartolomeo Manfredi. Hendrick ter Brugghen and Gerrit van Honthorst carried it home to Utrecht, Jusepe de Ribera made it central in Naples, and Georges de La Tour turned it into candlelit stillness in Lorraine. The fashion faded in Rome by the 1630s, but it left its mark on Rembrandt van Rijn, Diego Velázquez and Francisco de Zurbarán.
Related artists
More in Medium and Techniques
Carving
Chance
Chiaroscuro
Cinematic
Close-Up
![[Announcer] / [Photograph of Collage Painting by El Lissitsky entitled "Der Prolog"] — El Lazar Lissitzky](/_next/image?url=https%3A%2F%2Fmedia.getty.edu%2Fiiif%2Fimage%2Fe9e0a4e4-7678-4d40-a4fb-15455071ae95%2Ffull%2F!600%2C600%2F0%2Fdefault.jpg&w=3840&q=75)
Collage
Collecting and Modes of Display
Color Photography
Color Theory
Computer-Aided Manufacturing
Copies and Emulations
Delicate Materials
Densely Textured or Haptic Surface
Digital Art
Digital as Manual
Digital Painting and Drawing
Digital Print
Digitally Manipulated
Divinatory Objects, Talismans, and Amulets
Documentary Photography
