Michelangelo Merisi da Caravaggio lived the darkest & most dangerous life of any of the great painters The worlds of Milan Rome & Naples through which Caravaggio moved & which Andrew Graham-Dixon describes brilliantly in this book are those of cardinals & whores prayer & violence On the streets surrounding the churches & palaces brawls & swordfights were regular occurrences In the course of this desperate life Caravaggio created the most dramatic paintings of his age using ordinary men & women
- often prostitutes & the very poor
- to model for his depictions of classic religious scenes Andrew Graham-Dixon&s exceptionally illuminating readings of Caravaggio&spictures which are the heart of the book show very clearly how he created their drama immediacy & humanity & how completely he departed from the conventions of his time