"What begins in the work of Caravaggio is, quite simply, modern painting."

Today I accidentally spent a really nice touristic day in Rome. Accidentally, because I was supposed to go to school and catch up with history & etc. and instead I caught myself waiting in the line for two hours to see the Caravaggio's exhibition in the Scruderie del Quirinale Gallery. This is what happened: we have our dear friend Maris from Estonia over our place and there's so much to catch up with and last night, guess what, we totally lost our time track. The good company, all the chit chat of the world plus a bottle of great wine did their job well (too well I'd say). Anyway I decided I'd wake up an hour later and eventually everything went well. My timing was perfect, I was at the bus stop 5 min earlier, trust me this is RARE, but I think someone up there didn't like my easy luck at all so huge traffic appeared on my way just out of nowhere. But, as my to-do list is like what.. a meter long ? I easily found some annoying things needed to be done, after what I thought I should definitelly try and go to see the Caravaggio's exhibition. The exhibition has been on already from the end of February but the excitement doesn't seem to want to calm down and the gallery is "over-peopled" all the time.. the que was really long and I spent two hours under the sun standing melting... and it was SO WORTH IT! I think I have only once seen another so greatly arranged exhibition in my life (it was Basquiat's, in 2008 autumn, in Palazzo Ruspoli).





Let me tell a little about Caravaggio: one of the greatest baroque painters in Italy, he was born in Milan in 1571 and he died in 1610. In the 90's when he arrived in Rome he was discovered by the "art patrons" (cardinals) and soon enough he got the most important commissions of his time: the Martyrdom of Saint Matthew and Calling of Saint Matthew, delivered in 1600. But there is no wonder, his work was revolutionary. He ignored all conventional "rules" of classical painting and introduced a much more radical and naturalistic attitude. Dramatical scenography characterized of a great use of chiaroscuro (light and shadow) combined with a careful attention of real life helped him to take the artistical taste of his time to a whole new level. His personal life influenced his late work quite a lot: Caravaggio, as busy busy leading a very tumultuous life, was constantly involved in scandalous intrigues and troubles. The culmination of his "bad boy" fame was in 1606 when he accidentaly killed a young man and was forced to escape from the authorities until his death. If you care, read more about him on wiki (click!). Here's just few his works:

This was my absolute favourite...
Don't you just loooveee that flirty smile of his?!

Because of the cloudy cloudy wheather in Europe our friend is "forced" to extend her vacation in Rome (sounds terrible, right?:D) and we've been seeing around a bit with her. I love it so much, when people come to visit, it's a perfect chance to enjoy your city as a tourist and see it from a whole different point of view, to LIVE IT as if you were on a vacation yourself. Especially in a city like Rome, where there are places to discover until exhaustion!

PS!
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Information about the exhibition:

20 February - 13 June
ticket: 10eur/7,50eur
audioguide (english/italian) : 4eur (I SUGGEST!)
opening hours: Monday to Thursday 9:30am to 8:00pm ... continue reading

Curated by Rossella Vodret e Francesco Buranelli
Scuderie del Quirinale homepage (click!)
Tel. 06 39967500