Caravaggio : Complete Works

A revolution in painting
The mysterious genius who transformed European art

Caravaggio, or more accurately Michelangelo Merisi da Caravaggio (1571-1610), was always a name to be reckoned with. Notorious bad boy of Italian painting, the artist was at once celebrated and controversial: Violent in temper, precise in technique, a creative master, and a man on the run.

This work offers a comprehensive reassessment of Caravaggio's entire ouvre with a catalogue raisonné of his works. Each painting is reproduced in large format, with recent, high production photography allowing for dramatic close-ups with Caravaggio's ingenious details of looks and gestures.

Five introductory chapters analyze Caravaggio's artistic career from his early struggle to make a living, through his first public commissions in Rome, and his growing celebrity status. They look at his increasing daring with lighting and with a boundary-breaking naturalism which allowed even biblical events to unfold with an unprecedented immediacy before the viewer.

"A catalogue with first-class, full-size colour reproductions of all of Caravaggio's principal paintings."
- Royal Academy Magazine, London