12th April till the 2nd July 2000

The city of Bergamo hosts two exhibitions that form the first in a two part exploration of the work of Caravaggio. The theme of 'light' in painting responds to Caravaggio's intense and theatrical lighting which heightened the dramatic content of his uncompromising masterpieces. The exhibitions also take the unusual step of looking at the artist's first twenty years in Lombardy and Milan trying to trace early influences. A sudden switch in the second venue brings us to contemplate the profound influence Caravaggio had on 17th century painting. Following this chronology "The True Light: Caravaggio, La Tour, Rembrandt, Zurbaran" will follow this September.

Feeling flushed with success after a major exhibition devoted to Lorenzo Lotto, Bergamo chose Caravaggio as their next big drawcard. If you are familiar with Caravaggio's Roman and Neapolitan exploits then you might pause to wonder, what is his connection with the city of Bergamo? Quite simply - the artist was born in the nearby hilltown of Caravaggio in 1573 -  he is a son of Lombardy.

The Gallery of Modern and Contemporary art is the current venue for the more important of the two exhibitions. On show at the GAMC are forty paintings including an impressive group of fifteen by Caravaggio. Divided into two main sections : the first includes a selection of paintings from Lombard masters who seem to have influenced the young Caravaggio in his formative years. Works here include 'Boy bitten by a lizard' (Ragazzo morso da un ramarro) from Florence and 'The Musicians' (I Musici) on loan from New York's Metropolitan Museum. The second section looks at painters from Milan and Lombardy specifically who broke away from 16th century Mannerism to produce the first so-called naturalistic painting - Moroni, Moretto, Savoldo and Lotto.
 

'Boy bitten by a lizard' (Ragazzo morso da un ramarro) Private Collection, Florence  This painting relates to a group of works produced for patrons in the circle of Cardinal Francesco del Monte carried out during Caravaggio's first ten years in Rome. Another version exists in London's National Gallery, yet no scholar has solved the riddle of the allegory intended.  Dr. John T. Spike currently working on a catalogue raisonne of Caravaggio believes this composition by the artist to be a parody of the standard decorative picture that was the new vogue in Rome circa 1593. The kind of picture that D'Arpino had wanted from Caravaggio when he was starting out in Rome. There were plenty of handsome youths or girls fawning over vases of roses, symbolic of love. Caravaggio makes the meaning explicit by painting a rose behind the boy's ear, dropping the blouse off his shoulder and letting his middle finger be comically bitten by a lizard.

The Pinacoteca in Bergamo meanwhile hosts a more modest exhibition under the curation of Enrico De Pascale and Francesco Rossi that looks at a nucleus of paintings by followers of Caravaggio, "i Caravaggisti" who idealized and perpetuated the master's style. This group of eleven paintings includes works by Cecco del Caravaggio, Simon Vouet, Pietro Paolini, Matthias Stom. The Pinacoteca chose the paintings for their high quality and say that most of the pictures have never been exhibited in public. Together they demonstrate the vitality and the variety of the Caravaggesque movement and the persistence of its protagonists in looking to Caravaggio's dominating example.
 

Caravaggio, 'Judith and Holofernes', Rome, Palazzo Barberini

Also on show in Bergamo if you go all that way to see "Caravaggio"...

The Federico Zeri Donation: 50 Sculptures for Bergamo
at the Palazzo della Ragione
till 25th June 2000

The collection presents an overview of work by sculptors who worked in Bergamo from Giovan Antonio Amadeo to Andrea Fantoni and Giacomo Manzu. The sculpture is accompanied by a selection of paintings from the Accademia Carrara.

Raichel Le Goff

http://www.accademiacarrara.bergamo.it/caravaggio/

syndic.