M: The Man Who Became Caravaggio

M: The Man Who Became Caravaggio by Robb, Peter. Hardcover edition. ISBN: 9780805063561.

A bold, fresh biography of the worlds first modern painter As presented with "blood and bone and sinew" (Times Literary Supplement) by Peter Robb, Caravaggios wild and tempestuous life was a provocation to a culture in a state of siege. The of the sixteenth century was marked by the Inquisition and Counter-Reformation, a background of ideological cold war against which, despite all odds and at great cost to their creators, brilliant feats of art and science were achieved. No artist captured the dark, violent spirit of the time better than Caravaggio, variously known as Marisi, Moriggia, Merigi, and sometimes, simply M. As art critic Robert Hughes has said, "There was art before him and art after him, and they were not the same."Caravaggio threw out Renaissance dogma to paint with dazzling originality and fierce vitality, qualities that are echoed in Robbs prose. As with Caravaggios art, M arrests and susps time to reveal what the author calls "the theater of the partly seen." Caravaggios wild persona leaps through these pages like quicksilver; in Robbs skilled hands, he is an immensely attractive character with an astonishing connection to the glories and brutalities of life.