"Until very recently, the brilliant seventeenth-century Italian painter Michelangelo Merisi da Caravaggio, born in 1571 near Milan, was dismissed by art academicians as an unworthy interloper in the pantheon of art. Today Caravaggio's name is heard as often as Rembrandt's and he has been dubbed the first modern painter, the highest praise our age bestows. Caravaggio reflected in his canvases his own desires and spiritual crises to an extent no one had imagined possible, and he shocked his contemporaries by portraying the saints and virgins of Christianity with the faces and bodies of his companions and lovers from the streets of Rome.". "This new illustrated Caravaggio by John T. Spike is the result of more than twenty years of research by a leading authority on the artist. Placing Caravaggio within the broad panorama of society and ideas at the turn of the 17th century, Spike sets a richly detailed stage for his account of the artist's life and work. In his engaging and informed essay, Spike gives primary attention to the paintings themselves. The facts of Caravaggio's amply documented life, including the commissions he received, are considered in detail, as are his stylistic development and themes."--BOOK JACKET.