ABSTRACT

This chapter focuses on a far different artistic personality, Michelangelo Merisi, called Caravaggio after the northern Italian town where he spent his early years. The paradox of this artist's life, the contrast between his wildly delinquent behavior and his profoundly private, religious art makes him a challenging enigma, an ideal candidate for the empathie method of iconographie study. Caravaggio's antisocial behavior escalated with his fame; his name crops up with increasing frequency in the Rome police records from 1600 to 1606, when he fled the city after killing his opponent in a fight following a tennis game on which bets had been wagered. Both Caravaggio's Martyrdom of Saint Matthew and his David and Goliath are usually cited as including a self-image. Each contains a figure that seems a realistic depiction of the artist at his actual chronological age. Caravaggio's proclivity for certain physical types seems so strong that one might utilize this characteristic to check the authenticity of disputed canvases.