Caravaggio's hands

Revolutionary in his way of painting, Michelangelo Merisi da Caravaggio (1571-1610) personifies in every aspect of his eventful life the romantic figure of the damned artist.

Caravaggio was a leading Italian painter of the late 16th and early 17th centuries who became famous for the intense and unsettling realism of his large-scale religious works.

Caravaggio's innovations inspired Baroque painting, but the latter incorporated the drama of his chiaroscuro without the psychological realism.

The style evolved and fashions changed, and Caravaggio fell out of favour.

In the 20th century, interest in his work revived, and his importance to the development of Western art was reevaluated.

The 20th-century art historian André Berne-Joffroy stated: "What begins in the work of Caravaggio is, quite simply, modern painting".

Caravaggio employed close physical observation with a dramatic use of chiaroscuro that came to be known as tenebrism.

He made the technique a dominant stylistic element, transfixing subjects in bright shafts of light and darkening shadows.

Caravaggio vividly expressed crucial moments and scenes, often featuring violent struggles, torture, and death.

He worked rapidly with live models, preferring to forgo drawings and work directly onto the canvas.

His inspiring effect on the new Baroque style that emerged from Mannerism was profound.

His influence can be seen directly or indirectly in the work of Peter Paul Rubens, Jusepe de Ribera, Gian Lorenzo Bernini and Rembrandt.

Artists heavily under his influence were called the "Caravaggisti" (or "Caravagesques"), as well as tenebrists or tenebrosi ("shadowists").