One thing these two shows have in common is that each has a work of art on display that has been recently attributed to one of the two passionately adored Michelangelos. At The Renaissance in Rome, the so-called Pietà of Ragusa, literally discovered behind a couch in a middle-class home in Buffalo, New York, recently restored and on display publicly for the first time, is allegedly a long-lost work by Michelangelo Buonarroti himself.
Read More
If Rome can't get enough of Caravaggio, you certainly can't expect me to. In fact, there's a disgraceful lack of Caravaggio in the contents of this blog. I'm going to start remedying that right now. One of my favorite aspects of the Rome in the time of Caravaggio exhibit is that most of the works, instead of simply hanging on the wall at eye level, have been inserted into replica altars, with faux marble and porphyry, because almost all of them are part of altarpieces.
Read More
One of the best reasons to visit the Rome in the time of Caravaggio exhibit is the opportunity to study side by side two paintings of the same subject painted in the same city in the same year by two very different artists. The subject is the Madonna of Loreto. According to legend, the Holy House, where the holy family lived and Christ spent his childhood, was miraculously transported from Nazareth to Loreto, Italy in the 13th century.
Read More
Rome is obsessed with Caravaggio lately, and I, for one, can relate. I mean, how can you not love art history's favorite bad boy? The artist who dared to paint the world as he saw it and not as the church told him to? I have travelled to Naples, Sicily, Malta and further, just to track down Caravaggio paintings. One of my life’s goals is to see every work he ever painted.
Read More