Caravaggio, Complete Works

A revolution in painting: The mysterious genius who transformed European art. Caravaggio, or more accurately Michelangelo Merisi da Caravaggio (1571–1610), was always a name to be reckoned with. Notorious bad boy of Italian painting, the artist was at once celebrated and controversial: Violent in temper, precise in technique, a creative master, and a man on the run. This work offers a comprehensive reassessment of Caravaggio'
s entire oeuvre with a catalogue raisonne of his works. Each painting is reproduced in large format, with recent, high production photography allowing for dramatic close-ups with Caravaggio'
s ingenious details of looks and gestures. Five introductory chapters analyze Caravaggio'
s artistic career from his early struggle to make a living, through his first public commissions in Rome, and his growing celebrity status. They look at his increasing daring with lighting and with a boundary-breaking realism which allowed even biblical events to unfold with an unprecedented immediacy before the viewer. An accompanying artist chronology follows Caravaggio'
s equally tumultous personal life. This is the definitive work about Caravaggio for generations to come, to be delved into and put on display, with its slipcase neatly converting into a book stand.