Diss.--Erlangen-Nürnberg--Friedrich-Alexander-Universität, 1994. / Bibliogr. p. 235-258.

Berlin, Freie Universiẗat, Diss., 1999. / Dateiformat: zip, Dateien im PDF-Format.

Inaug. _ Diss.: Philosophische Fakultät: Köln: 1974. Bibliogr. p. 530 à 546.

In 1905, Caravaggio was resurrected as a figure of historical importance when art critic Roger Fry designated him as the harbinger of modern art. In his commentary on the artist, Fry declares that: “He was, indeed, in many senses the first modern artist; the first artist to proceed not by evolution but by revolution; the first to rely entirely on his own temperamental attitude and to defy tradition and authority.” Fry’s assertion of Caravaggio’s modernity is derived from early-modern biographies on the artist, which claim that Caravaggio self-consciously broke from the art of the past in a deliberate act of artistic revolution. The conflation of the artist’s biography with his work has remained a constant in Caravaggio scholarship since its inception. Modernity’s Caravaggio is a character with many guises – a painter, a sodomite, a pimp, a murderer, a fugitive, and a knight – all of which have molded our perception of a man who died centuries ago. Caravaggio’s modern appeal is evident in the numerous exhibitions, movies, miniseries, novels, and even a ballet, produced in celebration of the artist Fry proclaimed “one of the most interesting figures in the history of art.” This dissertation traces Caravaggio scholarship, as well as popular manifestations of the artist, through the twentieth century to present day by probing the theoretical and methodological trends that have shaped the discourse. My aim is to demonstrate that modernity’s Caravaggio is a construction derived from the most prevalent historical, aesthetic, and philosophical debates of the twentieth century.

Thesis (M.A.)--University of Delaware, 2009. / Principal faculty advisor: David M. Stone, Dept. of Art History. Includes bibliographical references.

I uppsatsen behandlas Caravaggio som person och konstnär samt hans verk. Syftet med detta var att titta närmare på olika spekulativa tolkningar som finns av Caravaggios konst och hur hans välkända vilda natur kan ha präglat hans skapande. Kapitel ett ger information om Caravaggios bakgrund och utveckling samt anger stämningen för tiden han levde och verkade i. Kapitel två presenterar kortfattat Caravaggios levnadslopp. Kopplat till några viktiga milstolpar i konstnärens liv presenteras här också ett antal utvalda verk i kronologisk ordning ända fram till tiden för hans död. Dessa bidrar till ökad förståelse för Caravaggio som person och konstnär men är också viktiga exempel på hur hans konst kunde reflektera det personliga jaget och det som försiggick i hans liv. I kapitel tre ligger fokus på olika ikonografiska analyser av Kvällsvarden i Emmaus (1606). Här är det viktigt att upptäcka variationerna som kan existera i tolkningar av verket. Ikonologiska teorier hjälper dessutom att lyfta fram anledningar till varför ikonologiska analyser kan variera.

Thesis--Cologne. / Vita. Includes bibliographical references (p. 530-546).

Submitted by Maicon Juliano Schmidt (maicons) on 2015-06-16T14:30:53Z No. of bitstreams: 1 Adimilson Renato da Silva.pdf: 1491226 bytes, checksum: f865a7a0a870dfa1b7f24b24b3dab051 (MD5) / Made available in DSpace on 2015-06-16T14:30:53Z (GMT). No. of bitstreams: 1 Adimilson Renato da Silva.pdf: 1491226 bytes, checksum: f865a7a0a870dfa1b7f24b24b3dab051 (MD5) Previous issue date: 2015-02-26 / CAPES - Coordenação de Aperfeiçoamento de Pessoal de Nível Superior / Este trabalho objetiva apresentar a trajetória de pesquisa realizada no contexto empírico da romaria e do Santuário de Nossa Senhora de Caravaggio, na cidade de Farroupilha-RS. Utilizamos, para a construção de dados, o método etnográfico, realizando observação participante, entrevistas, pesquisas em sítios da web, conversas com os atores, imagens fílmicas e fotográficas das romarias e períodos da festa do dia 26 de maio. Buscamos compreender, desse modo, como os agenciamentos de diferentes atores influenciam os modelos devocionais presentes na devoção a Caravaggio. A procura por imprimir uma lógica “instrumental” à religião remete ao fato de que a Cultura passa por um processo de profunda ressignificação, mudando seus contornos para a centralidade que a performatividade assume hoje em dia na ação e nos projetos dos agentes. Ao invés de privilegiarmos uma única linha de força ou lógica de ação presente na produção e promoção da romaria e de outras atividades, como caminhadas, revitalização de espaços sagrados, divulgação da devoção, etc., escolhemos compor um panorama de percepções a partir da inserção que tivemos em campo de pesquisa. Isso possibilitou dar voz e vez à ação dos atores e a seus atos (SCHUTZ, 1974). Uma consideração possível é de que, apesar de os agenciamentos em torno da devoção a Caravaggio estarem convergindo para um ponto em comum, canalizando o potencial de atração dos fiéis e romeiros ao longo do ano, eles se mantêm ainda circunscritos a certa originalidade de vocalização de interesses, objetivos e fins comuns. O movimento de aproximação ao sagrado e da religião é sempre tenso e conflitivo para os indivíduos marcados pela sociabilidade urbana impactada pela secularização. Apesar de aventada tal hipótese, um projeto de igreja torna-se manifesto em meio a este período de desinstituicionalização religiosa. / This work presents the research trajectory held in the empirical context of the pilgrimage and the shrine of Nossa Senhora do Caravaggio in the city of Farroupilha-RS. In order to build data, we made use of the ethnographic method, conducting participant observation, interviews, surveys on web sites, talks to the actors, filmic and photographic images of pilgrimages and periods Day Party May 26th. We seek to understand thereby as agencies of different actors influence the devotional gifts designs in devotion to Caravaggio. A demand for printing a "instrumental" logic to religion refers to the fact that culture goes through a process of profound reframing, changing its contours to the centrality that the performativity assumes nowadays in action and agents of the projects. Instead of privileging a single line of force or this action logic in the production and promotion of pilgrimage and other activities such as hiking, revitalization of sacred spaces, disclosure of devotion, etc., we decided to compose a panorama of perceptions from the insertion we had in the search field. This enabled voice and time to the action of the actors and their actions (SCHUTZ, 1974). A possible consideration is that although the agencies around the devotion to Caravaggio are converging to a common point, channel the potential to attract the faithful and pilgrims throughout the year, they remain still restricted to certain originality of vocalization interests, common goals and purposes. The movement to approach the sacred and religion is always tense and conflictive for individuals marked by urban sociability impacted by secularization and religious modernity. Although that rumored event, a church project becomes manifest in the midst of this period of religious deinstitutionalization.

The focus of this thesis will be the exploration of the narrative constructs around the life and work of Michelangelo Merisi da Caravaggio (1571–1610). This exploration will occur through the study of selected exhibitions curated on the Lombard artist from the twentieth- through twenty-first centuries. It will demonstrate how museums have played a significant role in the public’s understanding and perception of Caravaggio. In this thesis, I will argue that exhibitions on Caravaggio have supported and reshaped the general understanding and perception of the artist in crucial ways not done to the same effect in more nuanced academic scholarship. I will also argue that public exhibitions have functioned according to a different set of agendas from those addressed to academia. For example, exhibitions are conceived and function on guiding principles such as alignment with museum mission statements, audience draw and accessibility, educational outcomes, and the visitor experience. This thesis will seek to determine to what measure these principles have affected the framing of content and to clarify how in particular the selective use of Caravaggio’s biography has affected interpretation of his works within a museum context for a viewing public. The restored enthusiasm for Caravaggio in the second-half of the twentieth century also focused on his personal life due to the publication and translation by Walter Friedlaender of Lives written by his seventeenth-century biographers—Giorgio Mancini, Giovanni Baglione, and Giovanni Pietro Bellori—as well as the publication of documents and court records, which highlighted episodes of Caravaggio’s criminality, all impinging on our interpretation of his artistic merits. Although these findings support our understanding of Caravaggio as a complex individual, they also contribute to the sensationalization and romanticization of the artist as the quintessentially bohemian figure. Furthermore, doubtful attributions and disputes over execution dates problematize our understanding of the artist’s oeuvre and have at certain points reinforced a ‘Caravaggio narrative’ of the rebellious, indecorous artist. It is my intention to show how museum exhibitions have contributed to and exploited this narrative and to determine more precisely how and to what extent they have shaped it. With this exploration of Caravaggio’s narrative construction by museum exhibitions of the twentieth- to twenty-first centuries, I aim to approach and reconsider this subject, which has been dealt with heavily in scholarship, under a different lens. In the case of Caravaggio—whose persona and works have been posthumously manipulated, admired, and condemned at the hands of biographers and critics—it is necessary to approach this subject with renewed, unbiased, and objective vigor within a new frame of understanding: the museum exhibition frame. I will use a comparative method, studying three key exhibitions over time, to show how museums have presented the artist’s career development. I pay particular attention to the incorporation of biography and to the impact the inclusion of selected aspects of his Lives have had on the public view of his works. The influential format of Giorgio Vasari’s Lives of the Artists set the structure and codified the model of biographical determinism that would inform Caravaggio’s later biographers in the interpretation of his works; this has persisted through the twentieth- and twenty-first centuries with the application of psychoanalytic approaches to Caravaggio. The first of the three exhibitions I have selected is Longhi’s 1951 Milan exhibition, Mostra del Caravaggio e dei Caravaggeschi, which restored public consciousness of Caravaggio’s innovative and revolutionary style, reinserting him into the artistic canon. My second example will be The Age of Caravaggio, held at the Metropolitan Museum of Art in 1985. The Met exhibition is novel for its focus on Caravaggio’s relationship with his precursors and contemporaries (the organizing committee deliberately excluded works by Caravaggio’s followers) and for its interpretation of works within their historical context. Finally, I will examine Caravaggio: L’ultimo tempo 1606–1610, held first at the Museo di Capodimonte, Naples 2004–2005, then later as Caravaggio: The Final Years, at the National Gallery, London in 2005, which focused on the more enigmatic part of Caravaggio’s late career after his flight from Rome in 1606. The London 2005 exhibition provided new insight into the artist’s stylistic changes in the last years of his life. These three exhibitions will give insight about the perception shifts of the artist that have taken place in the twentieth and twenty-first centuries as a result of scholarly research spurred by museum exhibitions centered around Caravaggio. / Art History

Counter-Reformation treatises are typically dismissed as determiners of style. This dissertation challenges the prevailing view that rejects Counter-Reformation theory as key motivators of sacred style, and will prove that one treatise in particular, Cardinal Gabriele Paleotti's 1582 Discorso intorno alle imagini sacre e profane, held a considerable amount of authority almost immediately after its publication. Through a close study of the Discorso's nature-centered language and its applicability to the Lombard tradition of presenting "tangible presences," it is evident that one artist, in particular, fulfilled Paleotti's vision for a "reformed" sacred style, and one who seldom appears in connection with the cardinal: Michelangelo Merisi da Caravaggio. The interconnection of Paleotti's theology of nature, Lombard painting style, and the sacred works of Caravaggio is established through this contextual study of Counter-Reformation Rome in the late Cinquecento and early Seicento. Paleotti's Discorso is evaluated as a whole and as an expression of Paleotti's ideas on sacred art. This examination and analyses of Paleotti's major points and emphases shows how they collectively form a cohesive language and theoretical basis ("theology of nature") for the reformulation of sacred images based on naturalism. Careful readings of Cinquecento and Seicento literature on art (from Vasari to Bellori) draw correspondences between the words used to describe Lombard style and Paleotti's language in his Discorso. The dissemination of his "theology of nature" is demonstrated through reconstruction of Paleotti's Roman circle. Paleotti's important ties to the Oratorians, the Jesuits, the Accademia di San Luca, and his friendships with key cardinal-patrons in the circle of Cardinal Francesco Maria Del Monte, provided an ideal network for the dissemination of his ideas that would in fact put him into contact with Caravaggio. Caravaggio's plebian religious scenes and figures correlate with Paleotti's conviction that naturalism served as a bridge between painted subject and Christian viewer. This dissertation fills not only a critical lacuna in Counter-Reformation studies, but also opens new contextualizing avenues of research and dialogue on the intricate and determining relationship between Counter-Reformation theory and style, at which, at the heart, stand Cardinal Paleotti and Caravaggio. / Art History