Caravaggio, or more accurately michelangelo merisi da caravaggio 1571 1610 , was a legend even in his own lifetime. 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 edition offers a comprehensive reassessment of caravaggio’s entire uvre with a catalogue raisonné of his works. Each painting is reproduced 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.
