Artibus et Historiae no. 8 (IV)
1983, ISSN 0391-9064Up
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MAURIZIO MARINI - Problems with Caravaggio Part 2: A) Notes on the Techniques of «Naturalism» in the 1600s from Caravaggio to «Manfrediana Methodus» B) Caravaggio and His «Doubles». The Problem of His Possible Collaborators
A) The first paper tries to retrace the Lombard-Veneto (Giorgonesque) component in its full impact on the technical formation of the young Caravaggio and of subsequent international "naturalism". The investigation is based on biographical sources and works datable just before the public cycles i.e. to the end of the 1500's (the Contarelli Chapel in the Church of San Luigi dei Francesi in Rome, and the Cerasi Chapel in the Church of Santa Maria del Popolo in Rome [1599-1600]). The investigation then turns to the technical means of expression in "naturalism" as interpreted by Bartolomeo Manfredi (and by his followers) and this especially in the light of the rediscovering of a series of The Four Evangelists of which only two renderings of St. Mathew and the Angel by other artists had been known of.
B) The second paper deals with up-dating the biographical sources and the catalogue of the works of Caravaggio documented as being in the collection of the noble family Mattei in Roma, of which other versions of very good quality have been recently rediscovered, besides the signed works already known of. Dealt with are the well known discussions on the version of St. John the Baptist in the Pinacoteca Capitolina in Rome, formerly belonging to the Mattei family versus the other in the Galleria Doria Pamphilij also in Rome; on the Supper in Emmaus in London formerly belonging to the family Mattei versus the rediscovered version in a collection in N.Y.; on the Incredulity of St. Thomas in the Bildergalerie Sanssouci in Potsdam versus the probable Mattei version formerly in the Eristoff collection in Paris. This updating (as well as the analysis of other problems in the paintings) helps clear up the problem of 1) copies by anonymous painters 2) those by other, known, painters, 3) of collaborators and "pupils", these last hitherto escaping any rational classification.
