This paper will discuss a painting by Caravaggio (1571-1610) entitled A Concert, which dates from approximately 1595. This was an early work in Caravaggio's career. It was painted soon after his arrival in Rome from his rural birthplace near Milan. The painting depicts three young musicians preparing to play a concert. One boy is tuning his lute while another studies a musical score. The third boy holds an unusual looking horn. A figure representing Cupid sits behind them, holding a bunch of grapes.
The work was commissioned by the Cardinal del Monte, who was Caravaggio's first patron and helped the young artist to advance his career. The painting is representative of Caravaggio's early genre pieces. At this point in the artist's career, he had not yet started to paint the unique religious scenes that he is best known for.
A Concert stands as a fine example of the works of the early Baroque period in art. The Baroque period began in the late 16th century and lasted until the middle of the 18th century. It represented a time when secular themes were becoming prominent in art. In contrast to the earlier High Renaissance period, in which paintings usually depicted heroic and religious figures, Baroque art began to feature ordinary people engaged in familiar acts in natural settings. This became known as genre art, an important style of the Baroque which featured "the depiction of types in typical secular activities having no ulterior motive" (Elsen 173).
In his early work, Caravaggio often painted genre scenes of this type. In fact, Caravaggio's largest contribution to the Baroque period was in his emphasis on "naturalism" (Janson 549). The naturalism for which he became famous was seen not only in Caravaggio's choice of common people as the subjects of his work, but was also evident as an element of his painting style as well. The swing toward naturalism in art was an attempt at creating pictorial realism, and ...