Magdalene at the Tomb

After a number of years of apprenticeship, Caravaggio began his career in Rome in 1599 with a commission to provide two paintings on the life of St. Matthew for the Contarelli Chapel. He had already developed a striking and influential style which uses a dramatic lighting effect known as chiaroscuro, contrasting bright illumination with areas of dense shadow. His subjects ranged from genre paintings (scenes of everyday life) to religious subjects, and he often used lower-class models for both types of work.

The artist's turbulent personal life began to interrupt his career in 1606, when he was forced to flee to city for Naples to avoid a murder charge. He arrived on the island of Malta in 1607. Welcomed at first and made a Knight of St. John, Caravaggio's combative temper led to his imprisonment in the fall of 1608 when he attacked a nobleman. The artist escaped to

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al of Caravaggio, the Magdalene is surrounded by darkness. The single shaft of light illuminates her face and arm in the glow of grief but does not indicate the precise makeup of the surface behind her. Bernard Berenson observes that this is common in the artist's compositions: "He flashes a wedge of light onto an indeterminate surface, perhaps a wall, perhaps a ceiling, but he seldom tells us where we are." Berenson considers this to be cheating on Caravaggio's part, but, for this painting at least, showing the exact texture of the rock or foliage behind her would serve as a distraction to the scene the artist is presenting. Caravaggio shows her face, her arm, a suggestion of the drape of her garment, and the pot of spices which she is placing at the mouth of the tomb. He does not need to show more. Caravaggio's colors are muted, typical of his work at the time. Like the enormous St. John of the same period, however, he does admit one splash of brilliant color, a deep orange on the surface of the spice pot. This serves to comment strikingly on the much subtler flesh tones of the Magdalene's face and arm, bathed in the sunset glow of the single source of light. The orange also lends a little color to the drape of the w
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Some common words found in the essay are:
Jerome Magdalene, Caravaggio's Magdalene, Magdalene Biblical, Mary Magdalene, Contarelli Chapel, Bernard Berenson, St John, St Jerome, Walter Friedlaender, John Baptist, st jerome, mary magdalene, st john, church san giovanni, san giovanni, single figures, church san, magdalene intended, caravaggio's magdalene, lower-class models, jerome magdalene,
Approximate Word count = 1536
Approximate Pages = 6 (250 words per page)