Caravaggio #2

"In Roma’s historic center, at Vicolo del Divino Amore, pretty close to Piazza Navona, we can see what once was Caravaggio’s painting studio. In 1600 the name of the alleyway was different, but the palace is almost the same. The story of his painting studio was carefully described in the official archival of that age Police; Michelangelo Merisi da Caravaggio was wanted for murder, that’s why he had to quickly escape from Roma, leaving all his stuff inside his studio painting. The hostess wanted to take back the rent money and she asked to confiscate all the objects inside the studio and the Police, therefore, drew up a checklist of the objects.

Caravaggio’s studio was made by a big room with a garret over it; he had broken the ceiling of the room to create a wide and high studio painting for large canvases he used to paint. According to the archives from that time, he had divided the big room in two and had placed a big glass lens in the partition wall. It’s documented that Caravaggio attended a glazier’s workshop that sold mirrors and lenses too and it’s documented many painters of the age used the “Camera Obscura” (from Latin, means “darkroom”) created by Leonardo da Vinci.
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Recently, some critics of art and photographers suggested that Caravaggio went further, turning his whole studio painting into a big Camera Obscura. According to the hypothesis about Caravaggio’s studio, the first room was the one where the action took place. He had built a little stage where his models took place; the presence of the pedestal can be easily deduced by his paintings: Caravaggio used to paint with a perspective from below and the action had necessarily to take place higher. The second room, all painted in black, was used by Caravaggio and his canvas: in this room, the image projected through the lens appeared upside-down.
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(bron: Sandra Azzaroni)