Having Fun with Caravaggio!

Yes, I managed to finally get my finger out and kick off the new sketching year, having fun with Caravaggio! Early Italian Baroque painter Michelangelo Merisi da Caravaggio, 1571- 1610, was a hot headed painting rebel, famed for his dramatic chiaroscuro paintings and wild lifestyle, refusing to pay into the bank of counter reformation, he used prostitutes as models, yes even for his ''madonnas'', loved flashing too much flesh in his religious paintings, was in permanent trouble with the law. After murdering someone over a bet (although it may have been a fight over a prostitute)  Caravaggio fled Rome  to Naples, then to Malta where he was imprisoned and fled again to Naples, painting and fighting all the way. He died in Porto Ercole, I visited his tomb there, and his death is just a dodgy as his life, take your choice a) malaria b) Syphilis c) infected wounds from an attack or d) lead poisoning from his paints. Caravaggio was obviously someone with whom you could have fun with. So here we go! 

This is a sketch of a painting attributed to Caravaggio but is also hotly debated ….. Mary Magdalen in Ecstasy 1606. Apparently, the original disappeared and there are several copies;  here we see a very earthy Magdalen, head thrown back, showing too much skin, eyes nearly closed, a tear slipping out of the corner of her eye, red headed but missing all the attributes usual associated with Mary Magdalene ; skull, mirror and a flacon of ointment. Very erotic! 

You can wade through hundreds of images of the Magdalen, the legend of how she escaped Jerusalem after Jesus death  (walking through the desert her clothes disappeared) and arrived in the South of France where she lived as a hermit in a cave or how she was presented as a repentant prostitute, rejecting earthly vanity but one of the images that is completely fascinating is her covered in long red bodily hair! A hair suit …. well, hairy Mary! Here’s a wee example from near here, Tilmann Riemenschneider's Magdalene …. in her hairy suit! In Medieval times this was the representation that most church-goers would know …. her hair covers her to protect her modesty and chastity and yes it is red! 

Caravaggio follows the idea of Mary Magdalene being a red head, red hair was seen as being seductive, sinful, lusty (in Germany closely associated with witchcraft) and in some periods aristocratic. 

Interestingly for men, red hair is often associated with treachery or betrayal……. Judas is often represented as a ''ginge'' in painting. Take note Harry ….. the art world has you sussed!