The Dark Side of Caravaggio

Make sure to subscribe so you don't miss all of our weekly live stream sessions and 400+ edited videos!!

Full Video of this painting:

our storefront:

Instagram:
@nicolasuribeb
@danielaocmp

Tiktok:
@ourpaintedlives

[analogies]

Being a great artist sadly has nothing to do with being a good person. Caravaggio was a murderer and most likely a narcissistic sociopath. He killed a man for getting a recognition for nearly mastering his painting technique. And for what he did to revolutionize Christian art I’m sure he was well protected by the churches since they had so much more power and influence during his time.

[jonathanweir]

I heard towards the end of his life he was exiled from a city, he got in a fight and murdered someone with sword. People speculate that it has something to do with him getting lead poisoning and sort of losing his mind due to handling and mixing the paints which contained lead.

[cristinahavenhill]

This painting makes me want to cry.
Its almost like he recognized that someone elses words were coming from his mouth.
Like our words are so important in order to connect with each other and who we are.

[lenny]

He killed Ranuccio Tommasoni in a brawl, which led to a death sentence for murder and forced him to flee to Naples. There he again established himself as one of the most prominent Italian painters of his generation. He travelled to Malta and on to Sicily in 1607 and pursued a papal pardon for his sentence. In 1609, he returned to Naples, where he was involved in a violent clash; his face was disfigured, and rumours of his death circulated. Questions about his mental state arose from his erratic and bizarre behavior. He died in 1610 under uncertain circumstances while on his way from Naples to Rome. Reports stated that he died of a fever, but suggestions have been made that he was murdered or that he died of lead poisoning.

[LNSY]

Dude lost most of his family to the plague when he was little and lived in a world where life was cheap. Dude saw some brutal stuff

[Wezborg]

The ArtHoles podcast has an entire series dedicated to Caravaggio and it is absolutely worth a listen if you’re an art history nerd.

[vivs]

Not defending what he has done (m*rder is bad, point period blank) but how I see things is separating the art from the artist is a lot easier for the dead than the living. Caravaggio lived in a time where laws, philosophy, morals, etc. were different than now. People speculate that his declining mental health was partially due to the lead exposure in the paints of that time. Interesting theory but not set in stone. Artists of today….even with how advanced/far we have come, to still have them behave like how they do is baffling to me. Like we care more about bashing the dead and what they have done instead of EQUALLY focusing on the people/celebrities today and what they are STILL doing. The dead artists are dead. They have done damage but now we have the living pretty much following their footsteps. Actors, singers, rappers…it’s harder trying to separate their art when they are still alive and doing damage and yet everyone gives them the benefit of the doubt.

[willybranlund]

People don’t want to hear the bad things cause most people’s capacity for pain and suffering amounts to zero. It is why most people will never be remembered.

[undyingtome]

Yes, artists who prevail are often ruthless.

[amycox]

This ties into something I’ve been thinking of a lot recently. I think who you are as a person will inevitably seep into your art. This often results in negative personality traits like a bigoted or violent worldview showing. But, those aren’t always the traits that show up.

For Example, H P Lovecraft was *horribly* racist, even more so than was normal for the time period. I won’t write here what he named his cat. People often refer to this in relation to his horror stories depicting “cursed bloodlines”. He was talking about interracial people, case closed. But… it’s worth noting that both of his parents literally went mad when he was young. He wrote in letters throughout his life that he was afraid of the same happening to him. This fear of his own bloodline cursing him might be what he was drawing on. I don’t know for a fact, he may well have just been making a racist allegory. I think it was a combination of the two. But it’s something to consider.

Does the way that Lovecraft bigotries may not have been the only thing shown in his work really relate to your video about how Carvaggio’s violence did seep into his work? Yeah not really. I’ve just been thinking about it recently.

[MisterArtandMusic]

He was probably a combat vet. That's a different life.

[greatwhitesufi]

I could never do a painting like this, I'd eventually lose the plot after the paint covered the sketch and give up in the part where it doesn't look great but will eventually look better after some more refined painting

[AllenD]

If you don't separate the art from the artist, then you won't be able to watch practically any Hollywood movie.

[eyesupguardian]

Great painting and a nice, deep insight. Good job!

[Barquevious_Jackson]

You didn't say anything about the substance of Caravaggio's life.

[jaywoodside]

Art can be separate from the artist. Unless you cannot appreciate something until you know who created it, which is highly unlikely. That knowledge adds a layer absolutely but isn't necessary to appreciate or enjoy the work.

[KhârnTheAngry]

Separating the artist from the artist IN MY EYES works only if the artist is dead
If they're still alive and being a horrible human, then dont support them

[bonessasan]

I think I'm equally sensitive in left vs right, though the tingles show up in different areas of my body.

I'm not consistently more reactive to one type of trigger over another: "Trigger A" may work the best one day, but the next day "Trigger B" works much better while Trigger A does nothing for me at all. Some days none of the triggers work and other days I'm TOO sensitive and it isn't relaxing because I'm bracing for the next unexpectedly strong tingle that makes me physically squirm. I can't help but wonder if it's related to having ADHD... 🤔

Visual triggers combined with gentle sound triggers tends to most consistently cause relaxing tingles for me. Plucking, pulling invisible strings, hand waves like those used for hypnotism, that sort of thing.

[joez]

For his crimes he was issued a death warrant, but the way the law worked back then anybody could dish out the sentence and hand in a severed head as proof. So he spent the rest of his life in fear that somebody was going to chop his head off. It was around this time that he began painting images of people being beheaded.

[watercolourmark]

When I look around the internet at artists, I just see family friendly. And yet, all the artists we love weren't family friendly. Why is that?