Last month a painting that Sotheby’s and New York’s Metropolitan Museum had dismissed as a copy has, after analysis by artificial intelligence (AI), been given a 85.7 per cent probability of being an original Caravaggio. The Lute Player, which was bought for Badminton House in Gloucestershire in the 18th century was sold by Sotheby’s as a copy “after Caravaggio” for £750 in 1969. In 2001 the painting was described as “circle of Caravaggio,” which suggests the artist studied or worked closely with Caravaggio (but was not Caravaggio himself) for about £71,000. It took AI to convince the art world that he was the original artist, increasing the potential value of the painting to the tens or even hundreds of millions of dollars. There is a degree of irony that it was AI that authenticated the piece, as Caravaggio’s paintings are the antithesis of the “AI slop” — the banal and meaningless media created by generative AI — that is increasingly filling our screens. Caravaggio’s art captures human pain and anguish, and elevates it to the sacred and profound. His naturalistic observations of our physical and emotional state, make him an anecdote for our airbrushed, filtered times.
Tests involving artificial intelligence showed a strong match with verified paintings. The study was conducted by Art Recognition, a Swiss specialist in authenticating artworks that aims to set “a new standard for authenticating art.” Dr Carina Popovici, Art Recognition’s CEO, claims; “Everything over 80% is very high.” Before the AI was convinced, in 2001 it was bought by the British art historian Clovis Whitfield, who was convinced by its quality. He noted that it “corresponded exactly” with a description by Giovanni Baglione in his 1642 Caravaggio biography. There is now a documentary being made of the story of the life of the painting. Whilst this has the potential to be a fascinating tale, it will be hard to match the drama of Caravaggio’s own story.
Caravaggio’s messy, chaotic, passionate and violent life on the streets and in the places of the Italian peninsula and Mediterranean islands of the sixteenth century, could not be further away from the calm clarity and pixilated precision of the world of twenty-first century, Swiss, high-tech art authentication.
Born Michelangelo Merisi, Caravaggio ended up taking the name of his home town in Lombardy, northern Italy. His father, grandfather and grandmother all died within three days of each other of the plague when Caravaggio was six. His mother was killed by the same disease four years later. At twelve, he began an apprenticeship in the nearby studio of Simone Peterzano. In 1592, at the age of 21, he moved to Rome to seek his fame, as an outsider from the lofty art world of the eternal city with his self-taught style, distinct from that which he was exposed to in Peterzano’s studio.
His first years there were, however, a struggle. The impoverished Caravaggio lived on, and sold his art on, the streets, specialising in still lifes of fruits and flowers, and later, half length figures. In 1593 or 1594 Caravaggio painted himself as Bacchus in the Young Sick Bacchus. It is a Bacchus who looks like he is suffering from the same hunger as the artist who painted him would have been.
He caught a break in 1595, when eminent Cardinal Francesco Maria del Monte, recognised the young Caravaggio’s talent and took him into his household. Caravaggio painted The Lute Player in 1597 while in del Monte’s household. A few years later, del Monte pulled some strings and won the first commission for Caravaggio, an artist as yet untried in the public arena of large-scale religious painting. When his three paintings of St. Matthew were revealed to the public Caravaggio found the fame he sought overnight.
Over 400 years after his death, his paintings retain their raw power
The impact Caravaggio had, led French critic André Berne-Joffroy to later claim “What begins in the work of Caravaggio is, quite simply, modern painting.” He eschewed the idealization of Mannerism, the dominant style of the time; characterised by artificiality, elegance, and sensuous distortion of the human figure. His approach of capturing the raw unmediated reality, mainly using models from the streets to treat biblical and mythological subjects with realism, and doing so by implementing intense chiaroscuro (an effect of contrasted light and shadow) for dramatic ends, was revolutionary. He worked in an intense fury, often all through the night, or famously painting for two weeks straight.
Over 400 years after his death, his paintings retain their raw power. Looking at his paintings is like viewing the world via flashes of lightning, or maybe more appropriately for a man who whilst producing art worthy of decorating the most sacred spaces, felt very much at home in the seedy underworld of his day; through the strobe light of a back-street, after-hours, dive bar. Director Martin Scorsese claims that, “… he painted religious subject-matter but the models were obviously people from the streets; he had prostitutes playing saints. There’s something in Caravaggio that shows a real street knowledge of the sinner; his sacred paintings are profane.” In the spotlit moments he captures extreme and often agonized human experience, using violent contrasts between light and dark that produce an almost hallucinogenic luminosity.
You can see his first commissions, away from the dense crowds in Rome’s museums and palaces in the Church of San Luigi dei Francesi, opposite del Monte’s former palace. This includes the three canvases of The Calling of St Matthew, The Inspiration of Saint Matthew, and The Martyrdom of Saint Matthew.
At the centre of The Martyrdom of St Matthew a fallen Matthew lifts his eyes toward his half-naked, knife wielding murderer. Centrifugal forces seem to spin outwards from the imminent violence sending ripples of horror through the recoiling onlookers, dissipating the light as they move outwards from the illuminated central figures in the centre. Two peripheral figures have taken flight into the shadows. One turns back, his features captured in a shaft of light. The features are those of a horrified Caravaggio. Critic Andrew Graham-Dixon observes that: “Caravaggio too is a witness … But there is perhaps more to it: he is not only an observer, but also a participant, a furtive accessory to the dreadful act … The self-portrait, in this instance, reads like a mea culpa.
To see those features and his innovative use of light today, you need to put a 2 Euro coin in a meter to turn on a timed light that illuminates the canvases in the gloom of the chapel. The Martyrdom depicts a single violent act from the biblical past but the violence had echoes in Caravaggio’s present. A Catholic priest had recently been killed by a Protestant assassin.
In The Calling, Jesus and Peter seem to have appeared suddenly accompanied by a powerful shaft of light that takes up almost half the painting. The empty and dark space, that is not illuminated, intensifies the majesty of Christ’s gesture as he beckons Matthew to him and to the light. There are contrasts of shade and light but also in dress. The figures are all in contemporary dress except for Jesus and Peter who are in the dress of their time. The biblical age of miracles was not a distant inaccessible time but something eternal that can reach into the living present. The painting was Caravaggio’s first public demonstration of his style. It shows a dream of escaping the prosaic act of counting coins in a drab accounts room. Maybe it is Caravaggio’s dream, being rescued from the violence and chaos of his own life, being pulled from the dark into the light.
From San Luigi, a short walk past high-end shops and millennia-old temples, takes you to the church of Santa Maria del Popolo. You can stand between The Conversion of Saint Paul and The Crucifixion of Saint Peter, which faced each other in a side chapel as they have done since 1600 when Caravaggio won his second commission.
In The Crucifixation, Caravaggio captures the brutal torture of Peter. Light illuminates Peter and the laborious lifting of the heavy wooden cross by the straining executioners. In The Conversion, Saul has fallen from his horse, who dominates the top half of the picture. The divine is represented by radiant light. A close-eyed Saul spreads his arms not needing to see it to be overwhelmed by it. Picasso claimed he wanted the horse at the centre of Guernica to have the same presence as Caravaggio’s and like his, to be “so realistic… that you can smell the sweat.”
Despite his overnight fame, in life Caravaggio never quite received the status he believed he deserved. He went to great extremes in his art but also in life. He was a violent man, living in violent times. In Seventeenth Century Europe, honour was paramount. Any insult had to be paid for, and the price was usually spilt blood. Caravaggio was involved in disputes, duels, assaults and bloody vendettas. He eventually fled Rome after being found guilty of murder.
In 1606 an argument, described potentially over a woman, or a tennis match, escalated into a swordfight. Caravaggio killed his rival. He fled to Naples rather than face justice, hoping a pardon would quickly follow. From Naples he continued on to Malta, an independent sovereignty and home of the religious military order the Knights of Malta. If Caravaggio could join them, he would be in a better position to seek a papal pardon. In return for the painting The Beheading of St John the Baptist, he was granted membership. His sanctuary was however short-lived as he got into a fight with a fellow knight and found himself imprisoned. He escaped, but was expelled from the order.
After Sicily, Caravaggio returned to Naples where he was involved in yet another bar brawl which left him badly disfigured, possibly a revenge attack for his Maltese dispute. In the meantime, friends in Rome had successfully petitioned the Pope for a pardon — Caravaggio could return. In 1610, he loaded his belongings onto a ship but, for unknown reason, was arrested and had to buy his way out of jail. By the time he was released, the ship had sailed on without him. As chased the ship up the coast on foot he fell ill. A few days later, alone and feverish, he died at just 38 years old.
In some of his later paintings, when he was on the run from both the authorities in Rome and the Knights of St John, the light that floods his early paintings is diminished reflecting his gloomy mental state. One of his best known later paintings — Salome receives the Head of John the Baptist — hangs in the National Gallery in London. The biblical Salome was granted a wish after dancing for her stepfather, King Herod (according to the Gospels of Matthew and Mark). Prompted by her mother, she asked for John the Baptist’s head on a platter. In Caravaggio’s painting Salome turns away as she receives the head. In her averted eyes is it disgust, regret or sadness? Is it another self-portrait but this time just of Caravaggio’s mournful eyes regretting the life he took in Rome? Salome’s expression and sidelong glance remains as enigmatic as the artist who painted her.
Caravaggio’s paintings are a psychological autobiography. When we peer closely we see him looking back at us. His Bacchus reflects his meagre life on the streets of Rome. He defiantly stares at us as Medusa’s severed head, linking his myth to hers — a dying monster others dare not gaze at. His features adorn the severed head of Goliath perhaps expressing a hope that Caravaggio will overcome his violent and impulsive nature as Goliath was humbled (Graham-Dixon suggests Goliath’s sword is inscribed with Latin letters signifying the phrase, “humility conquers pride”). He is present as a witness from martyrdoms to the raising of Lazarus, to share in the suffering, to attempt piousness through proximity, or maybe expose his own guilt of action or inaction. In what is widely accepted to be his last painting “The Martyrdom of St. Ursula,” he appears again as a witness. His face is marked by bruises and lacerations, showing us the results of the attack outside a Naples tavern. He is present within his art, a witness to suffering that he himself feels and wants us to feel through his art.
AI art cannot move us in the way a genuine Caravaggio can
AI may be able to recognise a Caravaggio. Generative AI may be able to replicate his style. Some may find beauty within such a replication, or at least pleasure, but AI art cannot move us in the way a genuine Caravaggio can. Art is a creation and a reflection of humankind, it elicits a connection between artist and audience, who share the same vulnerabilities and awareness. When AI does start making art that reflects its own experience of the world, there is no guarantee we would understand it any more than a cave lion would have understood cave paintings. Our world, like all others, still contains similar violence and suffering as Caravaggio’s. The challenge he leaves those of us who do not believe in the divine is what provides the light for us today? Caravaggio showed us that instead of looking for beauty in an artificial idealised reality, in the right light there is beauty in even the most extreme suffering. Caravaggio put his own emotions, memories and state of being, from a life lived intensely, erratically and passionately, into his art. In dark times, his art can inspire us to face the gloom and provide our own light.
