Caravaggio

Michelangelo Merisi da Caravaggio (1573-1610) was an Italian painter who revolutionized a technique called "Chiaroscuro" by creating intense shadows from which people and objects emerge beneath the glow of the light. This highly distinctive way of handling light and shadow allowed him to create some of the most beautiful works I have ever seen: the contrast is so intense that it makes every color feel more vivid. The shadows are so dark that they are unreal, yet they give every figure and object a mystical aesthetic. I first learned about Caravaggio through a film about his life, and I identified with him because in the film—and, from what I have read, presumably in real life—he did not know how to accept criticism. This was not out of arrogance, but because the criticism was generally unfounded, aimed not at his technique but at his style, which is subjective and personal. At first, his style was not well received by everyone because half of each canvas was completely black, and apparently the concept of "negative space" was not popular in the aesthetics of the time. He was also heavily criticized for using ordinary people as models for his paintings, people from any social class whom he found on the street. There was even a major scandal when the Pope learned that he had used a prostitute as the model for a painting of the Virgin Mary.

Besides the contrast, I find his work fascinating because it possesses a great coldness and, at the same time, a great humanity, especially in his paintings depicting murders and beheadings. There is something perverse about them, yet at the same time the human body is treated in a way that makes it feel like nothing more than flesh—a way in which we do not normally like to think of ourselves, but one that is real.

Most of his paintings have religious subjects because they were commissioned by the Church, and they present a dark vision of a story filled with violence as told in Catholic theology.