The life of Michelangelo Merisi, known to us as Caravaggio, was short and intense, characterized by bouts of brawling, time in jail, banishment, and homicide. His paintings are typified by a dramatic manipulation of light ,reliance on human models, many with multiple appearances in his paintings; by a blatant homoerotic content, direct painting without preliminary drawings, a non-sentimental approach to religious art, and an eerie "photorealism" that extends to portraiture, various objects including musical instruments, scores, and plant material. Caravaggio has left few personal records by his own hand but the interpretations of his paintings by generations of art historians, combined with recently unearthed archival information, provides a rich history of the man and his time. They include analysis of the paintings including style and technique, psychological insights into the artist and subjects in the case of portraits, historical analysis of the period based on patrons, and an analysis of religious meaning through the choice of subject matter and symbolism.
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