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.
Once you've gotten a taste of Caravaggio, whose most of the works are featured at the Galleria Borghese, you can't leave Rome without seeing what many say is his most powerful work. You'll have to go to church to do it.
The Calling of Saint Matthew hangs in the Contarelli Chapel of the San Luigi dei Francesi church. Two other Caravaggio works - St. Matthew and the Angel and the Martyrdom of St. Matthew - which round out the triptych, are also on permanent display here.
The installation of the St. Matthew paintings in the Contarelli Chapel had an immediate impact among the younger artists in Rome, and Caravaggism became the cutting edge for every ambitious young painter.
Seeing such as renowned work in a church is the proof that Rome really is a living museum.
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