Caravaggio

There are fashions in art, just as there are fashions in clothing, interior decoration, cars (anybody looking for an Edsel?), and everything else. If you watch “Antique Roadshow” you know how popularity in painters affects prices. Right now the most fashionable of “old masters” is Caravaggio.

In The New Yorker I read an article about a Texan who married an Italian prince and is now restoring his palace in Rome. The story barely mentions the Michelangelo sculpture in the garden, while going into detail about a ceiling of Roman gods painted by Caravaggio. Neptune floats above so that the viewer looks directly up into his crotch.

In Rome some years ago I toured churches. Lots of churches in Rome (over 300) and all of them filled with art. In one gloomy old church I stood on the cold marble tiles while our guide lectured for thirty minutes on Caravaggio’s “Crucifixion of St. Peter.” The saint asked to be crucified upside down, as he felt unworthy to be crucified in the same position as his Lord. The painter pictured the saint being nailed to the cross, arranged diagonally across the canvas with the saint’s face writhing in agony in the foreground. Against a black background, the painting was as dramatic as a horror movie. I did not feel inspired with religious ecstacy.

Doubtless Caravaggio is important in the history of art for introducing paintings of ordinary people, such as beggars and card sharps. In a painting of the nativity, the guide pointed out that the shepherd, kneeling near the crib, had dirty feet.

Now the Kimbell Museum in Fort Worth has an exhibition of paintings by Caravaggio and his followers. The exhibit is considered so important that the museum placed a full-page ad in the New Yorker. That advertising costs mucho dinero.

I still drive, which surprises some people. Going to doctors’ appointments I drive on the 635 expressway. But I don’t drive to Fort Worth. For an old lady, that trip is simply too tiring.
While David was here, he took me to meet my friend Emma at the Kimbell.

Emma told me, “Barbara and I often visit museums together.” (Both were art majors in college.) “Each of us looks at art with different mind sets. Barbara is an artist and interested in how effects were created. I have more of an emotional response to art but know enough of the difficulty of creating to appreciate the creative skill of an artist.”

I guess I look at art the same way as Emma. After spending an hour in the Kimbell’s Caravaggio exhibit, with a whole room of St. John the Baptist by Caravaggio and others, Emma said she found it interesting how he and his followers treated the same subject, but “I don’t really like his paintings.”

I said, “I feel the same way.”

We ate lunch of quiche and salad from the Kimbell’s buffet. David wandered off to look at more of the museum, while Emma and I lingered over our iced tea glasses. It had been over a year since we sat down together. This chance to talk made it a splendid day.