Martha and Mary Magdalene

Artist Year Type Dimensions Location

Caravaggio c. 1598 Oil on canvas 100 cm 134.5 cm (39 in 53.0 in) Detroit Institute of Art

"Marta & Mary magdalene" by Caravaggio Ukuran: 85cm X 125cm | Media: Cat minyak on canvas | Harga: Rp.7.800.000

Michelangelo Merisi da Caravaggio (Italian pronunciation: [karavaddo]; 28 September 1571 18 July 1610) was an Italian artist active in Rome,Naples, Malta, and Sicily between 1593 and 1610. His paintings, which combine a realistic observation of the human state, both physical and emotional, with [1] a dramatic use of lighting, had a formative influence on the Baroque school of painting. Caravaggio trained as a painter in Milan under Simone Peterzano who had himself trained under Titian. In his early twenties Caravaggio moved to Rome where, during the late 16th and early 17th centuries, many huge new churches and palazzi were being built and paintings were needed to fill them. During the Counter-Reformation, the Roman Catholic Church searched for religious art with which to counter the threat of Protestantism, and for this task the artificial conventions of Mannerism, which had ruled art for almost a century, no longer seemed adequate. Caravaggio's novelty was a radical naturalism that combined close physical observation with a dramatic, even theatrical, use of chiaroscuro. This came to be known as Tenebrism, the shift from light to dark with little intermediate value. He burst upon the Rome art scene in 1600 with the success of his first public commissions, the Martyrdom of Saint Matthew and Calling of Saint Matthew. Thereafter he never lacked commissions or patrons, yet he handled his success poorly. He was jailed on several occasions, vandalized his own apartment, and ultimately had a death warrant issued for him by the [2] Pope. Michelangelo Merisi da Caravaggio (29 September 1571 18 Julai 1610) pelukis Itali yang bergiat di Rom, Napoli, Malta dan Sicili antara 1593 dan 1610. Dia dikatakan dari aliran pelukis Baroque terawal. Caravaggio dianggap enigmatik, menarik tetapi suka bertengkar dan merbahaya. Dia muncul secara tiba-tiba di arena senilukis Rom pada 1600 dan walaupun terus menerus mendapat penaung dan

tempahan, tidak pandai menyelenggarakan kejayaannya. Lapuran 1604 tentang gaya hidupnya sepanjang tiga tahun sebelum itu menceritakan bagaimana selepas bertekun selama dua minggu, Caravaggio merayau-rayau angkuh dengan pedang diiringi pekerjanya dari satu gelanggang ke gelanggang yang lain sedia untuk bertengkar mengakibatkan susah untuk bercampur dengan beliau. Lapuran infomatif terawal mengenai kehidupan Caravaggio di kota ialah dari transkrip istana bertarikh 11 July 1597 dimana dikatakan Caravaggio bersama Prospero Orsi menjadi saksi dalam kes jenayah berhampiran San Luigi de' Francesi. Pada tahun 1606 Caravaggio membunuh seorang pemuda dalam pertengkaran dan lari dari Rom dengan ganjaran ditawarkan untuk memberkas beliau. Di Malta pada 1608 beliau sekali lagi terlibat dalam pergaduhan dan pergaduhan Caravaggio di Napoli pada 1609 mungkin cubaan membunuhnya oleh pihak yang tidak dapat dikenal pasti. Tahun berikutnya, dia meniggal dunia selepas tempoh kerjaya sekadar lebih sedikit dari sepuluh tahun. Gereja-gereja dan bangunan-bangunan besar dibina di Rome dalam dekad-dekad lewat abad ke16 dan awal 17 dan lukisan-lukisan diperlukan untuk mengisinya. Gereja Reformasi Balas (CounterReformation) memerlukan seni asli berunsur ugama untuk menentang ancaman pengaruh Protestantisme. Kaedah-kaedah Manerisme yang digunakan selama hampir seabad tidak memadai. Gaya novelti Carravaggio merupakan Naturalisme radikal yang menggabungkan pemerhatian tekun dengan pendekatan dramatik dan mungkin juga teatrikal chiaroscuro, yaini penggunaan cahaya dan ombra. Walaupun ternama dan berpengaruh ketika hidupnya, Caravaggio hampir luput dari ingatan dalam abad-abad selepas kematiannya dan hanyalah pada abad ke 20 pengaruh pentingnya dalam perkembangan seni lukis dunia Barat disedari semula. Namun begitu pengaruh Caravaggio pada stail biasa yang muncul selepas Manerisme, yaitu stail Baroque baru begitu mendalam. Andre BerneJoffroy, pembantu kepada Paul Valry (1871 - 1945), seorang penyair, ahli falsafah dan penulis esei mengenai seni memberitahu Andre, 'Karya Caravaggio membuahkan lukisan moden'

Caravaggio's innovations inspired the Baroque, but the Baroque took the drama of his chiaroscuro without the psychological realism. While he directly influenced the style of the artists mentioned above, and, at a distance, the Frenchmen Georges de La Tour and Simon Vouet, and the Spaniard Giuseppe Ribera, within a few decades his works were being ascribed to less scandalous artists, or simply overlooked. The Baroque, to which he contributed so much, had evolved, and fashions had changed, but perhaps more pertinently Caravaggio never established a workshop as the Carracci did, and thus had no school to spread his techniques. Nor did he ever set out his underlying philosophical approach to art, the psychological realism which can only be deduced from his surviving work. Thus his reputation was doubly vulnerable to the critical demolition-jobs done by two of his earliest biographers, Giovanni Baglione, a rival painter with a personal vendetta, and the influential 17th century critic Gian Pietro Bellori, who had not known him but was under the influence of the earlier Giovanni Battista Agucchiand Bellori's friend Poussin, in preferring the "classical-idealistic" [36] tradition of the Bolognese school led by the Carracci. Baglione, his first biographer, played a considerable part in creating the legend of Caravaggio's unstable and violent character, as well as his [37] inability to draw. In the 1920s, art critic Roberto Longhi brought Caravaggio's name once more to the foreground, and placed him in the European tradition: "Ribera, Vermeer, La Tour and Rembrandt could never have existed without him. And the art of Delacroix, Courbet and Manet would have been utterly [38] different". The influentialBernard Berenson agreed: "With the exception of Michelangelo, no other [39] Italian painter exercised so great an influence."

in Naples in 1609, possibly a deliberate attempt on his life by unidentified enemies. This encounter left him severely injured. A year later, at the age of 38, he died under mysterious circumstances in Porto Ercole, reportedly from a fever while on his way to Rome to receive a pardon. Famous while he lived, Caravaggio was forgotten almost immediately after his death, and it was only in the 20th century that his importance to the development of Western art was rediscovered. Despite this, his influence on the new Baroque style that eventually emerged from the ruins ofMannerism was profound. It can be seen directly or indirectly in the work of Rubens, Jusepe de Ribera, Bernini, and Rembrandt, and artists in the following generation heavily under his influence were called the "Caravaggisti" or "Caravagesques", as well as Tenebrists or "Tenebrosi" ("shadowists"). Art historian Andre Berne-Joffroy said of him: "What begins in the work of Caravaggio is, quite simply, modern [4] painting."

From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

Martha and Mary Magdalene

Artist

Caravaggio

Year

c. 1598

Type

Oil on canvas

Dimensions

100 cm 134.5 cm (39 in 53.0 in)

Location

Detroit Institute of Art

Martha and Mary Magdalene (c. 1598) is a painting by the Italian Baroque master Michelangelo Merisi da Caravaggio. It is in the Detroit Institute of Arts. Alternate titles include Martha Reproving Mary, The Conversion of the Magdalene.

The painting shows the sisters Martha and Mary from the New Testament. Martha is in the act of converting Mary from her life of pleasure to the life of virtue in Christ. Martha, her face shadowed, leans forward, passionately arguing with Mary, who twirls an orange blossom between her fingers as she holds a mirror, symbolising the vanity she is about to give up. The power of the image lies in Mary's face, caught at the moment when conversion begins. Martha and Mary was painted while Caravaggio was living in the palazzo of his patron, Cardinal Francesco Maria Del Monte. His paintings for Del Monte fall into two groups: the secular genre pieces such as The Musicians, The Lute Player, and Bacchus - all featuring boys and youths in somewhat claustophobic interior scenes - and religious images such as Rest on the Flight into Egypt and Ecstasy of Saint Francis. Among the religious paintings was a group of four works featuring the same two female models, together or singly. The models were two well-known courtesans who frequented the palazzi of Del Monte and other wealthy and powerful art patrons, and their names were Anna Bianchini and Fillide Melandroni. Anna Bianchini appeared first as a solitary Mary Magdalene in the Penitent Magdalene of about 1597. Fillide Melandroni appeared in a secular Portrait of a Courtesan done the same year for Del Monte's friend and fellow art-lover, the banker Vincenzo Giustiniani. In 1598 Caravaggio painted Fillide again as Saint Catherine, capturing a beauty full of intelligence and spirit. In Martha and Mary the two are shown together, Fillide perfectly fitted to the role of Mary, Anna to the mousier but insistent presence as Martha.

Date c. 1598 Medium Oil and tempera on canvas Dimensions Framed: 51 x 64 3/4 x 3 3/4 in. (129.5 x 164.5 x 9.5 cm) 100 x 134.5 cm Department European Painting Classification Paintings Credit Gift of the Kresge Foundation and Mrs. Edsel B. Ford Accession No. 73.268 Provenance Arezzo, Collection Panzani Family; Legally exported through the dogana in Milan in 1897; Collection Indalecio Gmez, Argentine Ambassador to Berlin (acquired in Paris between 1904-1909); Salta Province and subsequently Buenos Aires, Argentina, by descent, Collection Carlos Gmez de Alzaga, grandson of Indalecio (1973); London, auction, Ambassador

Carlos Gmez de Alzaga [Christie's] 25 June 1971, lot 21 (bought in); Sold by owner, C. Gmez de Alzaga, to the DIA in 1973 (through David Carritt). Keywords canvas, oil, paint, paint, religion, tempera, christian

Picture No: C5-0013 Picture Name: Martha and Mary Magdalene 1598 Style/Subjects: Caravaggio Technique: Hand pained oil on canvas in high quality

Introduction:

Style: Material: Frame: Hanged Place: Deliveried Time: How to Keep:

Martha and Mary Magdalene 1598 is one of the most important works from Caravaggio.Michelangelo Merisi da Caravaggio (29 September 1571-18 July 1610) was an Italian artist active in Rome, Naples, Malta, and Sicily between 1593 and 1610. His paintings, which combine a realistic observation of the human state, both physical and emotional, with a dramatic use of lighting, had a formative influence on the Baroque school of painting. Caravaggio trained as a painter in Milan under a master who had himself trained under Titian. In his early twenties Caravaggio moved to Rome where, during the late 16th and early 17th centuries, many huge new churches and palazzi were being built and paintings were needed to fill them. During the Counter-Reformation the Roman Catholic Church searched for religious art with which to counter the threat of Protestantism, and for this task the artificial conventions of Mannerism, which had ruled art for almost a century, no longer seemed adequate. Caravaggio's novelty was a radical naturalism which combined close physical observation with a dramatic, even theatrical, use of chiaroscuro that came to be known as Tenebrism, the shift from light to dark with little intermediate value. Figure Painting/Classical Personage 100% Hand-painted on canvas in high quality No Additional Frame RequiredYou Can Select One Sitting Room, Bedroom, Coffee Shop, Bar,etc. 15 to 17 Days,If the order is urgent, please don't hesitate to contact us A.Half-wet cloth to wipe gently B.Buy a bottle of glazing oil to brush in painting C.Avoid direct sunlight because UV radiation will destruct fade and change color The design size is between 12*12 and 72*72 inches.If not,please don't hesitate to contact us

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Caravaggio, byname of Michelangelo Merisi, Italian painter whose revolutionary technique of tenebrism, or dramatic, selective illumination of form out of deep shadow, became a hallmark of Baroque painting. Scorning the traditional idealized interpretation of religious subjects, he took his models from the streets and painted them realistically. His three paintings ofSt Matthew (c. 1597-1602) caused a sensation and were followed by such masterpieces as The Supper at Emmaus (1601-02) and Death of the Virgin (1605-06).

Early life Caravaggio was the son of Fermo Merisi, steward and architect of the Marquis of Caravaggio. Orphaned at age 11, Caravaggio was apprenticed in the same year to the painter Simone Peterzano of Milan. At some time between 1588 and 1592, Caravaggio went to Rome. He was already in possession of the fundamental technical skills of painting and had acquired, with characteristic eagerness, a thorough understanding of the approach of the Lombard and Venetian painters, who, opposed to idealized Florentine painting, had developed a style that was nearer to representing nature and events. Caravaggio arrived in Rome and settled into the cosmopolitan society of the Campo Marzio. This decaying neighbourhood of inns, eating houses, temporary shelter, and little picture shops in which Caravaggio came to live suited his circumstances and his temperament. He was virtually without means, and his inclinations were always toward anarchy and against tradition. These first five years were an anguishing period of instability and humiliation. According to his biographers, Caravaggio was "needy and stripped of everything" and moved from one unsatisfactory employment to another, working as an assistant to painters of much smaller talent. He earned his living for the most part with hackwork and never stayed more than a few months at any studio. Finally, probably in 1595, he decided to set out on his own and began to sell his pictures through a dealer, a certain Maestro Valentino, who brought Caravaggio's work to the attention of Cardinal Francesco del Monte, a prelate of great influence in the papal court. Caravaggio soon came under the protection of Del Monte and was invited to receive board, lodging, and a pension in the house of the cardinal. Despite spiritual and material deprivations, Caravaggio had painted up to the beginning of Del Monte's patronage about 40 works. The subjects of this period are mostly adolescent boys, as in Boy with a Fruit Basket (1593; Borghese Gallery, Rome), The Young Bacchus (1593; Uffizi Gallery, Florence), and The Music Party (Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York). These early pictures reveal a fresh, direct, and empirical approach; they were apparently painted directly from life and show almost no trace of the academic Mannerism then prevailing in Rome. The felicitous tone and confident craftsmanship of these early works stand in sharp contrast to the daily quality of Caravaggio's disorderly and dissipated life. In Basket of Fruit (1596; Pinacoteca Ambrosiana, Milan) the fruits, painted with brilliance and vivid realism, are handsomely disposed in a straw basket and form a striking composition in their visual apposition. Major Roman commissions With these works realism won its battle with Mannerism, but it is in the cycle of the life of St Matthew in the Contarelli Chapel that Caravaggio's realistic naturalism first fully appears. Probably through the agency of Del Monte, Caravaggio obtained, in 1597, the commission for the decoration of the Contarelli Chapel in the Church of San Luigi dei Francesi in Rome. This commission established him, at the age of 24, as a pictor celeberrimus, a "renowned painter," with important protectors and clients. The task was an imposing one. The scheme called for three large paintings of scenes from the saint's life: St Matthew and the Angel, The Calling of St Matthew, and The Martyrdom of St Matthew. The execution (1598-1601) of all three, in which Caravaggio substituted a dramatic contemporary realism for the traditional pictorial formulas used in depicting saints, provoked public astonishment. Perhaps Caravaggio was waiting for this test, on public view at last, to reveal the whole range of his diversity. His novelty in these works not only involves the surface appearance of structure and subject but also the sense of light and even of time. The first version of the canvas that was to go over the altar, St Matthew and the Angel, was so offensive to the canons of San Luigi dei Francesi, who had never seen such a representation of a saint, that it had to be redone. In this work the evangelist has the physical features of a plowman or a common labourer. His big feet seem to stick out of the picture, and his posture, legs crossed, is awkward almost to the point of vulgarity. The angel does not stand graciously by but forcefully pushes Matthew's hand over the page of a heavy book, as if he were guiding an illiterate. What the canons did not understand was that Caravaggio, in elevating this humble figure, was copying Christ, who had himself raised Matthew from the street. The other two scenes of the St Matthew cycle are no less disconcerting in the realism of their drama. The Calling of St Matthew shows the moment at which two men and two worlds confront each other: Christ, in a burst of light, entering the room of the toll collector, and Matthew, intent on counting coins in the midst of a group of gaily dressed idlers with swords at their sides. In the glance between the two men, Matthew's world is dissolved. In The Martyrdom of St Matthew the event is captured just at the moment when the executioner is forcing his victim to the ground. The scene is a public street, and, as Matthew's acolyte flees in terror, passersby glance at the act with idle unconcern. The most intriguing aspect of these narratives is that they seem as if they were being performed in thick darkness when a sudden illumination revealed them and fixed them in memory at the instant of their most intense drama. Caravaggio's three paintings for the Contarelli Chapel not only caused a sensation in Rome but also marked a radical change in his artistic preoccupation. Henceforth he would devote himself almost entirely to the painting of traditional religious themes, to which, however, he gave a whole new iconography and interpretation. He often chose subjects that are susceptible to a dramatic, violent, or macabre emphasis, and he proceeded to divest them of their idealized associations, taking his models from the streets. Caravaggio may have used a lantern hung to one side in his shuttered studio while painting from his models. The result in his paintings is a harsh, raking light that strikes across the composition, illuminating parts of it while plunging the rest into deep shadow. This dramatic

illumination heightens the emotional tension, focuses the details, and isolates the figures, which are usually placed in the foreground of the picture in a deliberately casual grouping. This insistence on clarity and concentration, together with the firm and vigorous drawing of the figures, links Caravaggio's mature Roman works with the classical tradition of Italian painting during the Renaissance. The decoration of the Contarelli Chapel was completed by 1602. Caravaggio, though not yet 30, overshadowed all his contemporaries. There was a swarm of orders for his pictures, private and ecclesiastical. The Crucifixion of St Peter (1601) and The Conversion of St Paul (both in Santa Maria del Popolo, Rome), The Deposition of Christ (1602-04; Vatican Museum, Rome), and the Death of the Virgin (1605-06; Louvre Museum, Paris) are among the monumental works he produced at this time. Some of these paintings, done at the high point of Caravaggio's artistic maturity, provoked violent reaction. The Madonna with Pilgrims, or Madonna di Loreto (1603-06), for the Church of San Agostino, was a scandal because of the "dirty feet and torn, filthy cap" of the two old people kneeling in the foreground. The Death of the Virgin was refused by the Carmelites because of the indignity of the Virgin's plebeian features, bared legs, and swollen belly. At the advice of the painter Peter Paul Rubens, the picture was bought by the Duke of Mantua in April 1607 and displayed to the community of painters at Rome for one week before removal to Mantua. Culmination of mature style Artists, men of learning, and enlightened prelates were fascinated by the robust and bewildering art of Caravaggio, but the negative reaction of church officials reflected the self-protective irritation of academic painters and the instinctive resistance of the more conservative clergy and much of the populace. The more brutal aspects of Caravaggio's paintings were condemned partly because Caravaggio's common people bear no relation to the graceful suppliants popular in much of Counter-Reformation art. They are plain working men, muscular, stubborn, and tenacious. Criticism did not cloud Caravaggio's success, however. His reputation and income increased, and he began to be envied. The despairing bohemian of the early Roman years had disappeared, but, although he moved in the society of cardinals and princes, the spirit was the same, still given to wrath and riot. The details of the first Roman years are unknown, but after the time of the Contarelli project Caravaggio had many encounters with the law. In 1600 he was accused of blows by a fellow painter, and the following year he wounded a soldier. In 1603 he was imprisoned on the complaint of another painter and released only through the intercession of the French ambassador. In April 1604 he was accused of throwing a plate of artichokes in the face of a waiter, and in October he was arrested for throwing stones at the Roman Guards. In May 1605 he was seized for misuse of arms, and on July 29 he had to flee Rome for a time because he had wounded a man in defense of his mistress. Within a year, on May 29, 1606, again in Rome, during a furious brawl over a disputed score in a game of tennis, Caravaggio killed one Ranuccio Tomassoni. Flight from Rome In terror of the consequences of his act, Caravaggio, himself wounded and feverish, fled the city and sought refuge on the nearby estate of a relative of the Marquis of Caravaggio. He then moved on to other places of hiding and eventually reached Naples, probably in early 1607. He remained at Naples for a time, painting a Madonna of the Rosary for the Flemish painter Louis Finson and one of his late masterpieces, The Seven Works of Mercy, for the Chapel of Monte della Misericordia. It is impossible to ignore the connection between the dark and urgent nature of this painting and what must have been his desperate state of mind. It is also the first indication of a shift in his painting style. At the end of 1607 or the beginning of 1608, Caravaggio traveled to Malta, where he was received as a celebrated artist He worked hard, completing several works, the most important of which was The Beheading of St John the Baptist for the cathedral in Valletta. In this scene of martyrdom, shadow, which in earlier paintings stood thick about the figures, is here drawn back, and the infinite space that had been evoked by the huge empty areas of the earlier compositions is replaced by a high, overhanging wall. This high wall, which reappears in later works, can be linked to a consciousness in Caravaggio's mind of condemnation to a limited space, the space between the narrow boundaries of flight and prison. On July 14, 1608, Caravaggio was received into the Order of Malta as a "Knight of Justice"; soon afterward, however, either because word of his crime had reached Malta or because of new misdeeds, he was expelled from the order and imprisoned. He escaped, however. Caravaggio took refuge in Sicily, landing at Syracuse in October 1608, restless and fearful of pursuit. Yet his fame accompanied him; at Syracuse he painted his late, tragic masterpiece, The Burial of St Lucy, for the Church of Santa Lucia. In early 1609 he fled to Messina, where he painted The Resurrection of Lazarus and The Adoration of the Shepherds (both now in the National Museum, Messina), then moved on to Palermo, where he did the Adoration with St Francis and St Lawrence for the Oratorio di San Lorenzo. The works of Caravaggio's flight, painted under the most adverse of circumstances, show a subdued tone and a delicacy of emotion that is even more intense than the overt dramatics of his earlier paintings. His desperate flight could be ended only with the pope's pardon, and Caravaggio may have known that there were intercessions on his behalf in Rome when he again moved north to Naples in October 1609. Bad luck pursued him, however; at the door of an inn he was attacked and wounded so badly that rumours reached Rome that the "celebrated painter" was dead. After a long convalescence he sailed in July 1610 from Naples to Rome, but he was arrested enroute when his boat made a stop at Palo. On his release, he discovered that the boat had

already sailed, taking his belongings. Setting out to overtake the vessel, he arrived at Port'Ercole, a Spanish possession within the Papal States, and he died there a few days later, probably of pneumonia. A document granting him clemency arrived from Rome three days after his death. Influence The many painters who imitated Caravaggio's style soon became known as Caravaggisti. Caravaggio's influence in Rome itself was remarkable but short-lived, lasting only until the 1620s. His foremost followers elsewhere in Italy were Orazio Gentileschi, Artemisia Gentileschi, and the Spaniard Jos de Ribera. Outside Italy, the Dutch painters Hendrick Terbrugghen, Gerrit van Honthorst, and Dirck van Baburen made the city of Utrecht the foremost northern centre of Caravaggism. The single most important painter in the tradition was the Frenchman Georges de La Tour, though echoes of Caravaggio's style can also be found in the works of such giants as Rembrandt van Rijnand Diego Velzquez.

Detroit Institute of Arts, 73.268.

When the Conversion Narratives team went to Fort Worth, Texas for the Sixteenth-Century Studies conference in October last year, we were lucky enough to catch an incredible exhibition, Caravaggio and his Followers in Rome at the magnificent Kimbell Art Museum. We particularly enjoyed the chance to spend some time face-to-face with Caravaggios potent image of Martha and Mary Magdalene, often called The Conversion of Mary Magdalene. The image, which is usually housed in the Detroit Institute of Arts, where you can zoom in to see much of the fine detail of the painting, depicts an earnest Martha persuading a lavishly-dressed Mary of her sins. For Roman viewers, the scene would have gained a particular frisson from their knowledge that the sitter who portrayed Mary was a well-known courtesan, Fillide Melandroni (Martha may have been another courtesan, Anna Bianchini) so that the dynamic of the painting is frustrated by the non-conversion of the real-life counterpart to this ambiguously pious figure. Indeed, for many viewers, the luxury and sensuousness of the painting must have been at least as much, if not perhaps more, of the attraction than its overtly religious content: it offers a genre scene of two Roman women arguing, with the curves of Marys face and body echoed in the bulges of the convex mirror on which she rests her left hand (unlike flat steel mirrors, convex mirrors, made from thick, green-tinted forest glass blown into globes and lined with lead, did not need to be polished frequently but nor were they as desirable as crystal mirrors: a fashionable novelty manufactured in Venice, Antwerp, and Rouen). As Andrew Graham-Dixon puts it, Caravaggios paintings possess a sensually charged, magnetic attraction, next to which other paintings appear by comparison to recede, to retreat from the gaze. (This is not one of Graham-Dixons favourites, however: he suggests that Mary is pop-eyed, puffy and distorted!) The tension between richness and religious contemplation operates at every level. It is thought that the painting Caravaggios first use of the half-length format, which allows for a greater immediacy and sense of physical presence (we can imagine ourselves seated across the table from the two women) was commissioned by a noblewoman and sole heiress to a vast family fortune, Olimpia Aldobrandini, since it is first listed in an inventory of her collection, made in 1606. It is itself an object of conspicuous consumption, displayed to show off Aldobrandinis taste and wealth among the elite of Rome. Mirror, Mirror

The inclusion of the mirror asks viewers to enter into a dynamic conversation about their own delight in the rich textures of the picture; alongside a powder puff and comb, it points us to Marys vanity, and her concern with the things of this world. Rather than showing Mary to herself, however, the mirror captures a diamond of light a visual representation of the divine grace that inspires Mary to look beyond her earthly passions. The flower that Mary clutches to her chest is an orange blossom: symbol of purity.

A detail from Quentin Massys, The Moneylender, 1514 Massys included his own reflection as part of the scene reflected in a small convex mirror: a playful example of the artists signature.

As Debora Shuger realises, in a stimulating essay on early modern mirrors, for Renaissance viewers the object viewed in the mirror is almost never the self (22). Such mirrors are, Shuger suggests, if not totally Platonic (reflected an absolute ideal), at least platonically angled, titled upwards in order to reflect paradigms rather than the perceiving eye (26). Renaissance mirrors, she concludes, ask us to think differently about the mental worlds and self-awareness of people living in this period: they reflect a selfhood that is beheld, and beholds itself, in relation to God (38). Pilgrims who travelled to Aachen in the fifteenth-century appear to have purchased small convex mirrors as souvenirs: as relics were carried through the thronging crowds, travellers held up the mirrors to catch a glimpse of them, and then preserved the mirrors as objects which, according to Rayna Kalas, betokened that moment when the pilgrim had a vision of and was visible before the sacred relic. Every subsequent glance at this mirror memento might serve to remind the believer of that glimpse of sacred divinity. In Caravaggios painting, though, Mary looks away from the mirror which might capture her reflection (the dark glass of Corinthians?), and towards her shadowed but persuasive sister. Kalass recovery of a material mirror altered by its contact with the divine seems especially interesting in the light of a seminar discussion I had yesterday with a group of MA students, who pointed out how significant the materials of mirrors seemed to be across a range of texts. In this instance of a resolutely Christian materialism, the mirror is transformed by its contact with the divine, and acts as a charged physical memory of spiritual illumination. Marys mirror, then, is no longer an object in which to view herself, but an incarnation of divine revelation, pregnant with spiritual meaning.

Spiritual Accounting The tension between the sacred and the profane which haunts so much of Caravaggios religious painting and which arguably haunted his colourful life is captured in the way the dramatic light he painted at once offers a ray of divine illumination striking the mirror, and caresses Marys face and bosom. It also draws our attention to Marthas expressive hands: their arrested motion is central to the narrative quality of the painting, as we are presented with a conversion in motion, which draws the reader in to the conversation and makes them part of the dynamic of Caravaggios subtle work. Martha is engaged in a recognised rhetorical technique, frequently used by preachers counting on her fingers the reason for conversion.

On the left, a preacher, counting out his points for two eager listeners, from Thomas Trevilians wonderful manuscript commonplace book (Folger Shakespeare Library, v.b.232, fol. 203v). And on the right, a strikingly similar representation of a judge! (fol. 193v).

Marys own fingers are intriguing: her left hand, though it appears casually draped across the mirror, points to the diamond of light, indicating like the orange blossom that she has already committed to her conversion, whilst a wedding ring prominently displayed on her finger establishes her as the bride of Christ (in a figurative, rather than a Dan Brown conspiracy-style sense!). Graham-Dixon, however, notes that the odd angle of Marys finger which we might assume to be a technique to show off the ring reappears in a later portrait of Fillide as St Catherine, suggesting that she had a slight deformity of the hand. Is this, as Graham-Dixon argues, part of Caravaggios militant naturalism, his determination to make the Christian past present and vivid through the recognisable incorporation of contemporary (and famous) flesh? If so, it offers yet another invitation to the reader

to see this biblical scene not as a part of a remote past, but as a lively debate and a recurring transformation, played out on the streets and in the salons of Renaissance Rome.

Page from John Bulwers Chirologia or the Naturall Language of the Hand (1644), showing rhetorical hand gestures. References: David Franklin and Sebastian Schtze (eds), Caravaggio & his Followers in Rome(New Haven and London: Yale University Press, in association with the National Gallery of Canada, Ottawa, and the Kimbell Art Museum, Fort Worth, 2011) Andrew Graham-Dixon, Caravaggio: A Life Sacred and Profane (2010) Rayna Kalas, The Technology of Reflection: Renaissance Mirrors of Steel and Glass, Journal of Medieval and Early Modern Studies, 32 (2002) Debora Shuger, The I of the Beholder: Renaissance Mirrors and the Reflexive Mind, in Fumerton and Hunt (eds),Renaissance Culture and the Everyday(Philadelphia: University of Pennsylvania Press, 1999), 21-41 Lots of Renaissance Mirrors here. And the wonderful Folger Shakespeare Library has digitised the entire Trevilian commonplace book

Martha and Mary Magdalene, c. 1598, shows the saint at the moment of her conversion. It is from the Detroit Institute of Arts, but is currently on view in Caravaggio and His Followers, at the Kimbell Museum of Art

In Caravaggio's remarkable version of the Mary Magdalen story, he painted the moment of her transition from sinner to saint. As much as Dan Brown's The Da Vinci Code popularized the idea that the Church demonized Mary Magdalen, more commonly she was idealized in art as a saint who turned her life around. The painter Michelangelo Merisi, who is nicknamed Caravaggio, was demonized in his lifetime for his shockingly realistic paintings and his own "sinful" life. (He was charged with murder and often on the run.) The inclusion of Martha with Mary Magdalen and other objects requires the viewer to interpret the symbolism. Martha is seated with her back to the viewer, with only one shoulder and her hands hit by Caravaggio's dramatic lighting. On the table are a comb, powder puff and mirror, symbols of vanity. Mary points to her chest holding a flower, while her other hand points emphatically to a diamond square of radiant light on the edge of the convex mirror.

The naturalistic light, seemingly projected from a window, is also a divine light, the ray of God which has inspired the worldly Mary Magdalen to "see the light." In the moment that Caravaggio highlighted and caught in paint, as if on camera, we witness spiritual transition. From this point on she will give up her luxury and prostitution to follow Jesus. By using models who resemble contemporary people in Rome, rather than Biblical characters, the viewers were supposed to identify with the personal nature of the conversion process. Light is concentrated in a few important places: Martha's hands, Mary's face and chest, the hand and patch of light on the mirror. Sister Martha's hands are lit because she is pleading for Mary to change (and perhaps counting her sins and/or the reasons she should convert). Mary answers by pointing precisely to that light on the mirror. Perhaps because Mary Magdalen was seen as an instrument of change, and as the most loyal companion of Jesus in his death, she was greatly idolized in the Middle Ages. The church of Sainte-Madeleine, Vezelay, in Burgundy, was a site of her relics and one of the most important of all pilgrimage churches. However, in the late 13th century, a 3rd century Christian tomb discovered in the crypt of a church in Provence was connected to Mary Magdalen. The site of her devotion then moved to this church and another site in the delta of the Rhone, where legend claimed she had relocated after Jesus' death. After seeing Caravaggio's painting of Mary Magdalen, I thought differently of Georges de la Tour'sThe Penitent Magdalen at the National Gallery. Like Caravaggio, he used a contemporary young woman as his model. Yet this contemplative scene omits symbols of vanity and the light-dark contrast comes from candlelight hidden behind a skull. As Mary looks in the mirror, the skull is reflected rather than her face, as de la Tour has artfully manipulated perspective. Life as a sinner leads to a spiritual death. Death is inevitable, but if she chooses to follow Jesus she will die of the self and be reborn in new life. Here Mary Magdalen may either be pondering her fate before conversion, or thinking of her wish to be reunited with Jesus in eternity later in life. Oddly, she caresses the skull as if wanting to die, perhaps because death for a person at peace with God is ultimate goal and preferable to life on earth. The shape of the skull mimics, in reverse, the shape of her sleeve, arm and hand, showing her intimate connection to thoughts of death. In his view, we are also encouraged to ponder our actions and/or sins and consider our life in eternity. Personal faith is in important factor of both the Reformation and Counter-Reformation at this time, although only the Catholic artists would portray

saints. De la Tour leaves the meaning ambiguous, unlike Caravaggio who shows a transitional moment . Georges de la Tour, The Repentant Magdalene, c. 1635, at the National Gallery of Art, Washington, shows her in a contemplative mode, perhapsthinking of death. In the 6th century, Pope Gregory gave a sermon suggesting Mary Magdalen had been a prostitute before following Jesus. (Of her past, the Bible refers to the seven demons Jesus cast out of her, a vague description.) Although the church usually portrayed her to show that salvation is possible to all who ask for forgiveness, the model for Caravaggio's Mary Magdalen was Fillide Melandroni, one of Rome's most notorious courtesans. Neither she nor Caravaggio--who revolutionized art in his time--seem to have undergone a spiritual revolution. Caravaggio was frequently in fights and in 1606 he appears to have gotten into a fight with another man over Fillide, this remarkable woman.

Martha and Mary Magdalene, c. 1598, shows the saint at the moment of her conversion. It is from the Detroit Institute of Arts, but is currently on view in Caravaggio and His Followers, at the Kimbell Museum of Art In Caravaggio's remarkable version of the Mary Magdalen story, he painted the moment of her transition from sinner to saint. As much as Dan Brown's The Da Vinci Code popularized the idea that the Church demonized Mary Magdalen, more commonly she was idealized in art as a saint who turned her life around. The painter Michelangelo Merisi, who is nicknamed Caravaggio, was demonized in his lifetime for his shockingly realistic paintings and his own "sinful" life. (He was charged with murder and often on the run.) The inclusion of Martha with Mary Magdalen and other objects requires the viewer to interpret the symbolism. Martha is seated with her back to the viewer, with only one shoulder and her hands hit by Caravaggio's dramatic lighting. On the table are a comb, powder puff and mirror, symbols of vanity. Mary points to her chest holding a flower, while her other hand points emphatically to a diamond square of radiant light on the edge of the convex mirror.

The naturalistic light, seemingly projected from a window, is also a divine light, the ray of God which has inspired the worldly Mary Magdalen to "see the light." In the moment that Caravaggio highlighted and caught in paint, as if on camera, we witness spiritual transition. From this point on she will give up her luxury and prostitution to follow Jesus. By using models who resemble contemporary people in Rome, rather than Biblical characters, the viewers were supposed to identify with the personal nature of the conversion process. Light is concentrated in a few important places: Martha's hands, Mary's face and chest, the hand and patch of light on the mirror. Sister Martha's hands are lit because she is pleading for Mary to change (and perhaps counting her sins and/or the reasons she should convert). Mary answers by pointing precisely to that light on the mirror. Perhaps because Mary Magdalen was seen as an instrument of change, and as the most loyal companion of Jesus in his death, she was greatly idolized in the Middle Ages. The church of Sainte-Madeleine, Vezelay, in Burgundy, was a site of her relics and one of the most important of all pilgrimage churches. However, in the late 13th century, a 3rd century Christian tomb discovered in the crypt of a church in Provence was connected to Mary Magdalen. The site of her devotion then moved to this church and another site in the delta of the Rhone, where legend claimed she had relocated after Jesus' death. After seeing Caravaggio's painting of Mary Magdalen, I thought differently of Georges de la Tour's The Penitent Magdalen at the National Gallery. Like Caravaggio, he used a contemporary young woman as his model. Yet this contemplative scene omits symbols of vanity and the light-dark contrast comes from candlelight hidden behind a skull. As Mary looks in the mirror, the skull is reflected rather than her face, as de la Tour has artfully manipulated perspective. Life as a sinner leads to a spiritual death. Death is inevitable, but if she chooses to follow Jesus she will die of the self and be reborn in new life. Here Mary Magdalen may either be pondering her fate before conversion, or thinking of her wish to be reunited with Jesus in eternity later in life. Oddly, she caresses the skull as if wanting to die, perhaps because death for a person at peace with God is ultimate goal and preferable to life on earth. The shape of the skull mimics, in reverse, the shape of her sleeve, arm and hand, showing her intimate connection to thoughts of death. In his view, we are also encouraged to ponder our actions and/or sins and consider our life in eternity. Personal faith is in important factor of both the Reformation and Counter-Reformation at this time, although only the Catholic artists would portray

saints. De la Tour leaves the meaning ambiguous, unlike Caravaggio who shows a transitional moment . Georges de la Tour, The Repentant Magdalene, c. 1635, at the National Gallery of Art, Washington, shows her in a contemplative mode, perhapsthinking of death. In the 6th century, Pope Gregory gave a sermon suggesting Mary Magdalen had been a prostitute before following Jesus. (Of her past, the Bible refers to the seven demons Jesus cast out of her, a vague description.) Although the church usually portrayed her to show that salvation is possible to all who ask for forgiveness, the model for Caravaggio's Mary Magdalen was Fillide Melandroni, one of Rome's most notorious courtesans. Neither she nor Caravaggio--who revolutionized art in his time--seem to have undergone a spiritual revolution. Caravaggio was frequently in fights and in 1606 he appears to have gotten into a fight with another man over Fillide, this remarkable woman.