RIP Michelangelo Merisi Carravagio (Date of Death: July 18, 1610)

ALPHA OMEGA ARTS
By Ernest O. Britton

Last night, I finally finished Andrew Graham-Dixon's 445pg biography of Caravaggio, born Michelangelo Merisi. He's the Italian painter whose revolutionary technique of selective illumination became the hallmark of the Baroque movement, and in 1610, he died alone on the 18th of July. This densely researched book told the tragic tale of a religious artist who spent his life creating masterworks that revealed the "free" gift of God's love, but instead of focusing on that message, he died during his last desperate struggle to get what he craved more than God's love. He craved an idol of human recognition, and died without winning it.