Page:The New International Encyclopædia 1st ed. v. 04.djvu/226

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CAKAUSIUS. 188 CARAVAGGIO. when Constflntine was made Csesar he undertook the subjugation of Britain. Boulogne was taken in 293, and the same year Carausius was mur- dered by his chief minister, AUectus. The latter was easily conquered by Constantine in 296. Consult Gibbon, Drcline (tiid Fall, Chapter 13, edited by r.iny, with notes (London, 189(i-1901). CARAVACA, kii'ra-va'ka. A city of Spain in tlie Province of Murcia, on a river of the same name, about 39 miles west by north of Jlurcia (Map: Spain, E 3). It is situated on the slope of a hill crowned with a fine old cas- tle, and has broad and well-paved streets. The municipal building and the parish church, the latter an Ionic structure completed in 1000, are the more noteworthy edifices. The city is in a very fertile region, aud has manufactures of linen and woolen goods, brandy, soap, pajier, leather, tlour, chocolate, etc. Caravaea is a very old town, many ancient remains being found in the vicinity. It was held successively by the Ooths, floors, and Christians: but hiis occupied in history a place of comparative unimportance. rojiulatioii. in 1900, 15,804. CARAVAGGIO, ka'ra-va'jo. A to«ii in the Province of Bergamo, Lombardy, Italy, 14 miles south of Bergamo. A steam tramway connects it with ^lonza and Jlilan. The site of its ancient fortified walls is now occupied by promenades, but the moat remains and is spanned by six bridges. The chief buildings are a parochial church AWth a lofty campanile and the church L'Ajjparizione della Madonna, a celebrated pil- giim resort. The artists Polidoro Caldara, ^Michelangelo Amerigi, and Fermo Stella were horn in this town and all received the surname Da Caravaggio. Francesco Sforza, commanding the Milanese troops, here defeated a Venetian army in 1448. Population, in 1901 (of commune), 8974. CARAVAGGIO, ka'ra-va'j6. IMiciielangelo Americi, JIkktij. or MoHic.i DA ( loGO-ltiOO) . An Italian painter, founder of the Naturalistic School. He was born in Caravaggio, Bergamo Province, the son of a stone-)nason. As a boy he was employed to prepare plaster for the fresco- painters of Milan, and from them he acquired his desire to become a painter. He does not seem to have studied under any particular master, but to have used nature as a model, confining himself, at first, to still life and portraits. After five years of such work iu Milan, he went to Venice, where he studied the works of Giorgione, the only master who influenced him. Thence he went to Kome. and although for a short time associated wil-i Ccsare d'Arpino and another unimportant painter, he persisted iu going his own way. After much vicissitude he found a patron in Cardinal del Jlonte. which insured his sttccess. His talent developed with great rapidity. Throwing all traditions aside, and appealing only to nature, he became the head of the Naturalists, in opposition to the Mannerists. He became very popular, and even the Eelecticists imitated hini. But the animosities which he excited and his own passionate disposition involved him in constant quarrels, althotigh he certainly did not provoke all the quarrels attributed to him. Thus he is said to have challenged (iiiido Rcni. who imitated his work, to a duil. and to have chased the inof- fensive Guercino from Home. It is true, however, that he killed a comrade in a quarrel over a game. and had to leave Rome for this offense. He was jrotected and concealed near Palestrina by Duke Marzio Coloima. He i)ainted for that nobleman iffttil he went to Naples. In this city he found an appreciative public, and from his activity there arose a Naturalist school of great impor- tance. He afterwards went to Malta. Pleased by his portraits of himself, and by his other ser'ices to the order, the Grand Master of the Knights of !Malta made him one of their number, but when C'aravaggio again quarreled and wounded one of the knights, he threw him into prison. The painter escaped, and was for some time occupied in the churches of Catania, Syra- cuse, and other Sicilian cities. He was always desirous of returning to Rome, and on having been pardoned by the Pope, in 1609, he set out from Naples for the Eternal City. But he was walaid on the road, and died at Porto Ercole, from the f fleets of a wound. Caravaggio's art was like his character — fierce in mood, impetuous in expression. His pictures are full of action and of feeling, not mere jjainted models, like those of Courbet (q.v.), his Nine- teenth Century successor. They resemble his in that they are plebeian: both sought in the com- mon types of the people the models for their pictures, and both insisted on the exact re])roduc- lion of these types. There was, however, this great difference, that while Caravaggio saw na- ture with the extravagant eyes of the Seventeenth Century, Courbet saw it with the matter-of-fact gaze of the Nineteenth. Caravaggio was a good technician, both in drawing, color, and brush- work, and he handled light and shade with fine effect. His Avork may be best divided into two periods. In the first he did not make such prominent use of the dark shadows and high lights which char- acterize his later period, and which became the most prominent characteristic of the Naturalist School. Most of the works of this period are genre pieces, executed during his stay in Rome, (hie of the best examples is the "Card Players," in which the artist represents a wealthy, inex- ))erienced young man being cheated by profes- sionals. The best example of this picture is in the Sciarra Palace, Rome, although the Dresden replica has I>cen most reproduced. Another fine s])pcimen of his first period is the "Gipsy For- tune Teller," in the Palazzo dei Conscrvatori, on the Capitoline Hill. The cuiniing jade seems more anxious to win the young man's heart than to attend to professional duties. The Berlin ^lusemn possesses two charming genre pieces, "I>ove as a Ruler." "Love Conquered," showing an admirable nuistery over the nude. The works of his second period were mostly larger religious compositions, the result of the reputation already established by his genre pro- ducti(ms. They aroused great opposition, espe- cially in Rome, on accotint of the ordinary types which he used to portray the saints whom the Church adored. Among those which had to Iw removed from the churches in Rome was ".Saint Matthew Writinir the Gospel," now in the Ber- lin Sluseum, and the admirable "l^-ath of Mary," in the Louvre. In the latter picture the body of the Virgin looks as if it had just come from the morgue, but the expressiim of grief in the mourn- ers is most affecting. His masterpiece of this category is his "Burial of Christ." painted for tlw Church of Santa Maria in Trastevere, but