political or intellectual developments, it would be more accurate to think of it as one among other basic features that distinguish the period. The strengthened Catholic faith, the absolutist state, and the new science were all factors that combined to give Baroque its fascinating variety. Around 1585, the Papacy began a campaign to make Rome the most beautiful city of the Christian world. They patronized art on a large scale, which attracted many ambitious young artists. Several of them came from northern Italy and it was they who created the new style. One of the foremost painters of the time was a genius called Caravaggio (1571-1610). Caravaggio produced a new and radical kind of realism He painted directly on the canvas from the live model and he depicted the world that he knew so that his canvases are filled with ordinary people. In “The Calling of St. Matthew” (1599-1602), Caravaggio depicts his subject entirely in terms of contemporary lowlife. Yet, to identify one of the characters as Jesus, he uses dramatic light and shadow to spotlight the hand gesture of Jesus (based on Michelangelo's Adam on the Sistine ceiling). Later, when Caravaggio moved to Naples (then under Spanish rule), his main disciple was a Spaniard named Jusepe Ribera (1591-1652). Ribera absorbed Caravaggio’s style and produced paintings of saints, prophets, and ancient beggar-philosophers that appealed strongly to the otherworldliness of Spanish Catholicism. Most of Ribera’s figures are middle aged men who possess the unique blend of inner strength and intensity. In “St. Jerome and the Angel of Judgment” (1626) the dramatic composition, inspired by Caravaggio, and the raking light give the figure a powerful presence by heightening the realism and emphasizing the vigorous surface textures. Another great Baroque artist was Annibale Carracci (1560-1609) whose art contained classical and Renaissance elements and the correctnes...
