Art Of The Day Weekly

Caravaggio, the accursed genius

PARIS – There is no doubt Caravaggio would have been quickly set aside by a #MeToo campaign of the 17th century. His life was surely no example of virtue: he was guilty of sexual harassment more than once, undoubtedly robbed, obviously slapped and socked more that one person, and even killed a rival – that is one certainty since he was sentenced to death. But bad boys seem to fascinate the public: Caravaggio has become one of the most “bankable” painters. There is one mitigating circumstance in his favor: he was a genius. The exhibition at the musée Jacquemart-André presents very few of his works – ten to be precise. But this is quite an exploit for a museum out of Italy, and regarding a painter so rarely shown and jealously kept. These works are those of his Roman period, his adulthood, from 1592 to 1606, between the age of 21 and 35. They include The Lute-Player from the Hermitage or Judith beheading Holofernes. Both admired and strongly contested, Caravaggio is surrounded in the exhibition by friends, such as Gentileschi, and by rivals such as Annibale Carracci or Baglione, in order to give a balanced image of those forging years. Rome was then the true capital of the Western world, led by its strong-minded Popes. A fight takes a bad turn, a body falls on the ground, and Caravaggio has to flee at breakneck speed. He spent the last part of his life running away before dying o a beach in Tuscany. But a very recent study carried out by the Institut hospitalo-universitaire de Marseille (Hospital and University Institute of Marseille), revealed day before yesterday that, based on the analysis of the painter’s teeth, the rebel probably died foolishly from a Staphylococcus aureus. So much for the myth: the emaciated, shaky figure of a malaria-riddled artist on a Tuscan beach was so much more romantic.
• Caravage à Rome. Amis et ennemis at the musée Jacquemart-André, from 21 September 2018 to 28 January 2019.

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