The Death of the Virgin.
Posted: Wed Apr 23, 2014 11:53 am
This is an oil on canvas in the Baroque style painted by Michelangelo Merisi da Caravaggio titled “The Death of the Virgin”. It was painted between 1601-1603 and can be found in the Musée du Louvre, Paris, France.
It was commissioned by a wealthy papal lawyer as an altarpiece for his chapel. Once finished it was rejected by the parish for a couple of reasons. Firstly at the time, whether or not Mary had actually underwent death before her “departure” was a moot point. It was assumed by most Catholics that she had been alive. (In 1997, Pope John Paul II affirmed that Mary did experience a natural death before she went to heaven.)
Thank the pope as Lola used to say!
Secondly the painting was unfit for the chapel as it showed Mary’s bare legs. If you look closely at the painting you can just see a flash of flesh above her ankles. But worst of all it was rumoured that Caravaggio used the body of a pregnant prostitute who had drowned in the Tiber as a model for the Virgin’s corpse.
Now, seeing as how long it took him to finish the work he must have painted Mary first or else he had the body embalmed or whatever it was they did then to preserve a corpse.
The painting is rather dark and rather sad (the scarlet drapes hanging from the invisible ceiling excepted) with John standing over her and the Magdalene seated in front with her head bowed. Everyone in the painting including her son’s followers appear struck by grief and none seem particularly happy, so I guess Mary must have been dead when she died ... I mean before she was beamed up to heaven so to speak.
But here's the best part. Even though he was a famous painter, Caravaggio was by all accounts quite a thug and was notorious for fighting. After killing a couple of dudes in a duel instead of inflicting symbolic wounding, even his patrons couldn’t help him and he was forced to flee to Naples where he was safe from the Roman authorities. Here his connections with the Colonna family got him many church commissions. Small wonder he later went to Sicily ... I mean "connections with the Colonna family?
After a while he went to Malta and got involved with the Knights of Malta, where their Grand Master, obviously impressed at having a famous artist as his new best friend, got Caravaggio inducted as a knight. Despite this within a short while he was arrested and jailed, probably as a result of yet another brawl in which a knight was seriously wounded. He managed to escape and was expelled from the order ‘as a foul & rotten member.”
How the mighty have fallen! From the greatest painter in Rome to foul & rotten. Tsk tsk. He later had the chutzpah to return to Rome where he eventually died from lead poisoning. No not a bullet ... real lead poisoning which was probably a result of sniffing paint up his nose instead of coke.
It was commissioned by a wealthy papal lawyer as an altarpiece for his chapel. Once finished it was rejected by the parish for a couple of reasons. Firstly at the time, whether or not Mary had actually underwent death before her “departure” was a moot point. It was assumed by most Catholics that she had been alive. (In 1997, Pope John Paul II affirmed that Mary did experience a natural death before she went to heaven.)
Thank the pope as Lola used to say!
Secondly the painting was unfit for the chapel as it showed Mary’s bare legs. If you look closely at the painting you can just see a flash of flesh above her ankles. But worst of all it was rumoured that Caravaggio used the body of a pregnant prostitute who had drowned in the Tiber as a model for the Virgin’s corpse.
Now, seeing as how long it took him to finish the work he must have painted Mary first or else he had the body embalmed or whatever it was they did then to preserve a corpse.
The painting is rather dark and rather sad (the scarlet drapes hanging from the invisible ceiling excepted) with John standing over her and the Magdalene seated in front with her head bowed. Everyone in the painting including her son’s followers appear struck by grief and none seem particularly happy, so I guess Mary must have been dead when she died ... I mean before she was beamed up to heaven so to speak.
But here's the best part. Even though he was a famous painter, Caravaggio was by all accounts quite a thug and was notorious for fighting. After killing a couple of dudes in a duel instead of inflicting symbolic wounding, even his patrons couldn’t help him and he was forced to flee to Naples where he was safe from the Roman authorities. Here his connections with the Colonna family got him many church commissions. Small wonder he later went to Sicily ... I mean "connections with the Colonna family?
After a while he went to Malta and got involved with the Knights of Malta, where their Grand Master, obviously impressed at having a famous artist as his new best friend, got Caravaggio inducted as a knight. Despite this within a short while he was arrested and jailed, probably as a result of yet another brawl in which a knight was seriously wounded. He managed to escape and was expelled from the order ‘as a foul & rotten member.”
How the mighty have fallen! From the greatest painter in Rome to foul & rotten. Tsk tsk. He later had the chutzpah to return to Rome where he eventually died from lead poisoning. No not a bullet ... real lead poisoning which was probably a result of sniffing paint up his nose instead of coke.
