Though he painted to order, he was, after all, a commissioned artist, and his pictures follow the standard religious iconography of his day; but his pictures do not merely depict scenes from the Bible they are the emotional life-blood of a man, selfish, arrogant, violent, often drunk, a man beset by demons, but who could paint; and his painting was his exoneration from a life that he could not confess with any semblance of sincerity.

Michelangelo Merisi da Caravaggio (Caravaggio was in fact the town in Lombardy where he was raised) was born in Milan on 29 September, 1571. His father had died when he was aged 6, his mother when he was 18, and he had no love for his siblings, whom had abandoned him as his parents had done, he was from the outset an angry young man. His family though had been reasonably well-off and well connected. Despite, from an early age being recognised as feckless and unreliable and as such receiving very little financial support, he used his connections well. In 1584, he moved to Milan and served a formal 4 year apprenticeship as a painter and artist. It wasn’t a period in his life he could have enjoyed, having to work to strict guidelines and churning out copies of other peoples works must have driven him to distraction. In 1592, he wounded an officer of the law in a brawl (just the first of many brushes with authority) and he fled to Rome to avoid prosecution. It was said that he arrived in the city “naked and needy.” But he soon found employment in an artists workshop painting orthodox works of art to order. His breakthrough came when he was discovered by Cardinal  Francesco Maria del Monte, an enthusiastic collector and patron of the arts. Once discovered he hit the Rome art scene like a bombshell.

The Crucifixion of St Peter

Caravaggio was like no other artist. Art at this time was highly formalised but its purpose had changed. Religious art and iconography had become cutting-edge propaganda in the Catholic fightback against the Protestant Reformation. Caravaggio discarded convention, he painted with the power of the eye, and he refused to distort the truth to create idealised images for the sake of his patrons. His martyrdoms were bloody and brutal. He took very little, if any, preparation over his paintings, he never drew his subjects first, he simply took his brush and got down to work. He painted the truth, the truth of what he knew, what he saw, and what he had experienced. Paintings such as his Martyrdom of St Matthew, The Crucifixion of St Peter, and The Card Sharps brought the life of the streets to the artists garret. He was never short of patrons and commissions though he did have a number of works returned to him for being theologically suspect, not what his patrons had expected, or for being too raw.

Caravaggio was a great success, the enfant terrible of the Roman art scene, and he knew it. He was described at the time thus, ” after a fortnights work he will swagger around for a month or two with a sword at his side and a servant following him, from one ball-court to the next, ever ready to engage in a fight or an argument, so he is most awkward to get along with.” His behaviour was atrocious and his unreliability manifest. It was not Caravaggio’s art that would unravel, it would be his life.

Caravaggio dwelt in the backstreets of Rome, he was sexually promiscuous, consorted with prostitutes and thieves, and liked his young men. The art critic Robert Hughes wrote how the young boys in his paintings were, ” overripe, peachy bits of rough trade.” Between 1600 and 1606 he was arrested 11 times always for crimes in violence. On 29 May, 1606, after a steamy hot night of heavy drinking, in a row over a woman, he killed a local gangster called Tommasoni in a sword fight. He knew that his next arrest would be for murder, a capital offence, and that he would be on trial for his life. He fled Rome in the dead of night with a price on his head.

He turned up in Malta where he was lauded and made a Knight of St John. He continued to work but he also continued to offend people. It wasn’t long, however, before he got involved in yet another fight, this time with a fellow Knight. He was yet again forced to flee but the Knights did not let a sleight go unpunished, and they would have their revenge.

Caravaggio made his way to Naples, the great and the good of the city were delighted to have such a famous and notorious artist in their presence, and the commissions rolled in. But for Caravaggio, Naples was a backwater, he craved to return to Rome. He painted pictures for the Pope, self-portraits of a contrite Caravaggio, which he intended to transport to Rome. His departure was hastened when an attempt was made on his life, probably by the Knights of St John. They were determined to kill him and they very nearly succeeded when he was attacked by three men who beat, strangled and stabbed him. He was fortunate to survive but it was time for him to leave. He took ship for Rome along with his paintings. His paintings would indeed arrive in Rome but they would do so without him. After a night ashore of drinking and whoring, he missed his ships sailing. He chased after it along the beach at Porto Ercole in Tuscany, where he collapsed and later died, apparently of a fever.

Caravaggio’s life had been a short but sensational one. He had changed art for ever, but he had died both a hunted and a haunted man.