Power of Art: Caravaggio

I was watching Simon Schama's The Power of Art, and it's not the same as I remember it. I mean, I remember it as super interesting, and it still is today, but there's a heaviness to the program. The heavy music, the way Simon talks, and his overall demeanor are super serious. It's not bad; it's just not what I remember. I think I prefer Waldemar Janusczak. He has a bit more levity to his demeanor. I wonder if Simon was also going through something serious in his personal life because the energy I feel from him is so low, but it could be a reflection of me too, so who knows; anyway, this is about the Caravaggio episode I watched.

Caravaggio is a really interesting character. His paintings are super dark and about biblical things, but what I found interesting in the program was how angry he was when he was painting. Or rather, that he did a lot of things like get in drunken fights and challenge other people almost at random for the smallest infractions. He also had a drinking problem.

What he was painting, though, was still of the times, but how he was feeling came through in a way that I had not seen in other works. That does not mean they did not exist; it means I just haven’t come across it, and I thought it was an interesting thing I observed in his works.

It is challenging for me to see people's voices in older works. I can certainly appreciate the craft and the skill, but Caravaggio seemed able to paint his expression into the work, even without his own visual language to speak. He used the church's language but his emotion to express it.

Another thing is that he didn’t have many good relationships. Every single one of them was either a friend he pushed away or a patron who may be considered close because they helped him run away, but he really didn’t have any community. 

In my experience, I have lived alone or felt alone or lonely, and while I was in rehab, I got to experience the healing power of community, and it really does make a difference. In my case, it didn’t matter that I didn’t have much to talk about or things in common with others there; it was about being around other humans who had things going on in their lives and hopefully could put down their issues so they could live a better life. 

That is what we all want, and as I watched Caravaggio, I wondered whether he was dealing with things that happened to him earlier in life, or if he did things he was having trouble processing. His emotions just kept running him in ways that eventually led him to be killed. 

It is unfortunate, but I focused less on the work he was creating and more on the pain or suffering he was feeling about things known and unknown, but maybe that was what he wanted.