Snapshots from the past
A small personal reasoning: "The instrument of Caravaggio", Professor Wise.
disturbing is the intuition of Longhi then analyzed and theorized by prof. Wise use of the darkroom by Caravaggio.
becoming aware helped me to realize how indispensable tool for an artist (and humans in general) without which the world is always equal to itself.
I finally understood his work, those mysterious contrasts of light and shadow that made it famous Michelangelo Merisi, and I was always troubled and fascinated by keeping enchanted for a long time before his paintings.
Sure enough I was wondering what he wanted to communicate with that game so strange lights.
I like to believe that he wanted to "sculpt" the canvas as a high relief by treating the flat bottom with darker colors and characters in relief with the intense light. This statement is still valid if we consider the result, but not any more if I think the instrument that the artist needed to make it work well to illuminate its models so that the images were projected onto the wall of the darkroom.
me now everything is clear, the answer I was looking for. For a moment, however, spontaneous arose the question if I could still be considered Caravaggio is a great artist. Now that I had been unveiled the "trick" I felt cheated. I had always thought that his paintings and his way almost unique to represent the reality was also a very personal way of seeing
... But now there seems to be half of that instrument. Such a powerful tool and did not want to compare eg the frame of perspective that I have always considered no more than a help because it is already the human eye sees in perspective. The dark room contrast, is more. It is combined with the third eye lens that captures a portion of the world deformed and return at will. One moment, this is nothing more than the photo! And if photography is a recognized art form, and therefore the photographer an artist, the more it is Caravaggio that this technique it was a precursor.
In addition, as Sage says: << Michelangelo sa che il tempo moderno che comincia forse proprio con lui è quello dell’attimo, dell’istante, del dramma e del bivio. Ogni momento può presentarsi come quello della scelta, della morte o della vita >>.
What is the best technique to use to freeze this moment? The photography! What has always defined instant.
So I venture to define the first Michelangelo "photographer" of the story!
