Caravaggio and Bernini

Longtime WSS faculty member Diane Wilson sent several videos that she discovered about Baroque era painter Michelangelo Caravaggio and sculptor Gian Lorenzo Bernini. They are terrific! Some are long and wonderfully informative interviews and lectures, while others are shorter and exquisite as theatrical re-enactments of Caravaggio paintings. As you watch, think about the powerful contrasts of light and darkness, and the dramatic effect those value contrasts create in the works. Think about the gestures of the figures, and the passionate movement coming out of diagonals rather than the stability of triangular compositions in High Renaissance art. And notice the emotional authenticity and reality in the work of artists who worked from life – using real models sometimes brought in from the streets. We experience this work viscerally, with our bodies.