Caravaggio

Painter of Miracles

By: Francine Prose

Narrated by: Ann Richardson

Francine Prose's life of Caravaggio evokes the genius of this great artist through a brilliant reading of his paintings. Caravaggio defied the aesthetic conventions of his time; his use of ordinary people, realistically portrayed - street boys, prostitutes, the poor, the aged - was a profound and revolutionary innovation that left its mark on generations of artists. His insistence on painting from nature, on rendering the emotional truth of experience, whether religious or secular, makes him an artist who speaks across the centuries to our own time.

Born in 1571 near Milan, Michelangelo Merisi (da Caravaggio) moved to Rome when he was 21 years old. He became a brilliant and successful artist, protected by the influential Cardinal del Monte and other patrons. But he was also a man of the streets who couldn't seem to free himself from its brawls and vendettas. In 1606 he fled Rome, apparently after killing another man in a dispute. He spent his last years in exile, in Naples, Malta, and Sicily, at once celebrated for his art and tormented by his enemies. Through it all, he produced masterpieces of astonishing complexity and power. Eventually he received a pardon from the Pope, only to die, in mysterious circumstances, on the way back to Rome in 1610.

©2005 Francine Prose (P)2020 Tantor

The written

The audio reader was really pleasant with good Italian pronunciation. Descriptions of Italy were easily imagined.

Caravaggio Remains a Mystery

Besides the terribly dull narration, once again Caravaggio is turned into the man the modern mind wants him to be and most likely not the man he truly was and in the end he still remains a mystery. Nothing enlightening or new here. The author seems to know little about Catholicism or simply dislikes it and misses the point of many of Carravaggio’s paintings.