Burst of Light: Caravaggio and His Legacy

Michelangelo Merisi da Caravaggio, Saint John the Baptist, 1604-05
(The Nelson-Atkins Museum of Art) 302#

 "Burst of Light: Caravaggio and His Legacy" an exhibition demonstrating the lasting legacy of the infamous artist on 17th century art has traveled across the country from the Los Angeles County Museum of Art to the Wadsworth Antheneum in Connecticut, a much smaller collection but noteworthy nonetheless. As with any show of this magnitude foreign loans are a major issue which are missing except for two loans from the National Gallery in London and the National Gallery of Canada in the Wadsworth exhibit. The show includes five paintings by Caravaggio which are hung in the first of three galleries. Also in the first gallery are those artists who were Caravaggio's contemporaries or those artists that worked alongside him. The 'Caravaggisti' as his followers are known are divided into two galleries according to their geographic location. There is an audio guide for the exhibition which is accessed through a phone line. For you to enjoy the exhibition as any other visitor can do at the Wadsworth I am including the telephone number 1-860-760-9980 and the numbers on the works of art. Just dial this number from any phone and punch in the numbers on the paintings followed by the pound key. The main number for the overview of the exhibition is 300#.

As soon as visitors enter the main gallery of the exhibition they are confronted with a half-clad, young Saint John the Baptist, commanding attention in the middle of the facing wall. This painting is everything one expects from the infamous Michelangelo Merisi da Caravaggio - he is a full-length figure pushed to the front of the picture plane with a dark background that helps to project the figure into the viewer's space and a strong light coming from the top left. It is even possible to see the incisions above the right knee. This painting is flanked on both sides with two smaller, more intimate works - Martha and Mary Magdalene to the left and  Saint Francis of Assisi Ecstasy to the right.

Joseph Wright of Derby - A Classical Romantic in the Age of the Industrial Revolution

Joseph Wright of Derby, Three Persons Viewing the Gladiator by Candlelight, 1765
(Private Collection)

Joseph Wright of Derby, A Philosopher Giving a Lecture on the Orrery, 1766
(Derby Museum and Art Gallery, Derby, England)

Joseph Wright of Derby, Experiment with an Air Pump, 1768
(National Gallery, London)

Joseph Wright of Derby is an 18th century artist that really stands out due to his unusual depictions of dark interiors with a hidden light source a little reminiscent of Carvaggio and De La Tour, two artist I find incredibly fascinating.

An avid believer in the enlightenment, he was part of an intellectual group, the Lunar society, who believed in the unity of science, philosophy and art.  They got their name from their monthly meetings being held on the first Monday before a full moon.

Georges de La Tour, The Newborn, 1645
(Musee des Beaux-Arts, Rennes)

Michelangelo Merisi da Caravaggio,
The conversion of St. Paul, 1601
(Santa Maria del Popolo, Rome)

What I find worthy of observing here is that Derby painted these works, around the same time that in France Fragonard  was showing The Swing, 1767, Jean-Baptiste Greuze was showing, Septimius Severus and Caracalla, 1769 and in London, Benjamin West was displaying Agrippina Landing at Brundisium with the ashes of Germanicus, 1768, at the Royal Academy.

Fragonard, The Swing, 1767
(Wallace Collection, London)

Jean-Baptiste Greuze, Septimius Severus and Caracalla, 1769
(Musee du Louvre)

Benjamin West, Agrippina Landing at Brundisium with the Ashes of Germanicus, 1768
(Yale Univeersity Art Gallery)