Caravaggio: Painter of Miracles (Eminent Lives)

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 twenty-one 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. Francine Prose presents the brief but tumultuous life of one of the greatest of all painters with passion and acute sensitivity. The New York Times Book Review - Christopher Benfey With his short life and shorter fuse, Caravaggio is a tantalizing subject for a brief biography. He is a major figure…with an almost nonexistent paper trail…A novelist's tools are as necessary here as a biographer's: an imaginative reconstruction of events, a credible portrayal of Caravaggio himself. And Prose, a superb novelist and occasional art critic, has provided both. Matching gorgeous prose to gorgeous artworks, Prose responds to each image as a moment of theatrical revelation, sensual or spiritual, and frequently both. Boston Sunday Globe In Caravaggio, New York Times bestselling author Francine Prose offers an enthralling account of the life and work of one of the greatest painters of all time. Caravaggio defied the aesthetic conventions of his time; his use of ordinary people, realistically portrayedstreet boys, prostitutes, the poor, the agedwas 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, made him an artist who speaks across the centuries to modern day. Called racy, intensely imagined, and highly readable by the New York Times Book Review, Caravaggio includes eight pages of color illustrations, and is sure to appeal to art enthusiasts interested in one of historys true innovators. Caravaggio is part of the Eminent Lives series from HarperCollins, a selectionof biographies by distinguished authors on canonical figures. Presents a biography of late sixteenth-century Italian Renaissance painter Michelangelo Merisi da Caravaggio, and chronicles his life, later years in exile in Naples, Malta, and Sicily, and his influence on later generations of artists. Title from ebook title screen (viewed on Sept. 28, 2005).