Example Of Art And Architecture Movie Review

Simon Schama’s The Power of Art portrays the quintessence of various artists, one being Caravaggio, and the painful scorn and incomprehension the artists faced during their lifetime. The episode portraying Caravaggio in the television serious by the BBC chronicles the several interesting aspects of the artist’s works.
In the opening episode of the series, Michelangelo Merisi da Caravaggio’s impeccability of ‘transgression’ is portrayed. The artist had paramount ability to portray scenes from Biblical history expressing the divine infusion of God’s grace. The Pope and the cardinals of the Roman catholic Church found these pieces of art to be extremely worthy of being patronized.
Caravaggio completely undermined the shy erotic themes and the pretentious intellectualism as propagated by the Mannerist painters. The backgrounds of his painting were blacked out and the subjects were placed too much in the foreground so as to give the sense that they might pop out of the painting and attain life in front of the avid beholder. The artist had aptly conquered the immediacy of pious feeling, which the Catholic Church aimed to promote.
The subjects and viewers were placed ‘here and now’ in the artist’s paintings. He even placed himself in a number of his works. In the painting titled David with the Head of Goliath, Caravaggio’s face appears two times as both the victor and the vanquished. The painting shows the young hero pensively eyeing the head of the victim.
A spontaneous painter, Caravaggio painted with minimal preparation. His subjects, who were saints, were attributed with irregular and rough faces of ordinary working people. These subjects were moreover portrayed in contemporary ambiance. He portrays his works to an extension of the real world and the audience seems to take part in the scene that is depicted. Supper at Emmaus is such an example. In The Death of the Virgin too he portrays the face of the virgin to be like that of an ordinary woman.
Another aspect of his paintings is the unique use of lights. He aptly used light to emphasize certain parts of the paintings. If one looks at Jesus’ hand in The Calling of St. Matthew, this would be extremely clear. The artist also utilized light to portray three dimensional features and reveal texture. This also attributed his works with vitality, panache and dramatic charm.
The propagator of realism, the omnipotent artist of his age, the controversial yet admired soul thus has made his own mark in the history of art and still intrigues the audience who can only be in awe of his artistic works.