The Modern Manner in Dialogue with Contemporary Art
There are very few names of painters from the Sixteenth and Seventeenth centuries that today create long lines of visitors in front of museum entrances and even manage the difficult task of bringing art closer to those outside the field, particularly the very young.
If one were to seek a dialogue between the art of the past and contemporary art, the challenge would become complex, but not impossible. In fact, scrolling through an imaginary list of those who could be remembered as the main protagonists of art, there is certainly one name that stands out above all for having won this double competition, Michelangelo Merisi da Caravaggio. An artist whose works are now considered emblematic of the modern manner and with which contemporary art engages today. We must discover in what circumstances this double victory occurred.
Everything happened on December 10, 2020, when, around a virtual table, the Accademia Carrara di Bergamo, through the figure of its director M. Cristina Rodeschini, organized an online dialogue with four voices, involving Keith Christiansen, Head of the European Painting Department at the Metropolitan Museum of New York, Giacinto Di Pietrantonio, contemporary critic and curator, and the Flemish artist Jan Fabre.
The meeting had as its main protagonist the painting of Caravaggio which, remembered for its revolutionary impact in the Italian and European Baroque context, was placed in dialogue with a series of four works by Jan Fabre.
The Critical Fortune of Caravaggio
In an introductory conversation, the director of the Accademia Carrara and Keith Christiansen emphasized the rediscovered critical fortune of Caravaggio which, starting from the 1951 exhibition organized by Roberto Longhi, marked a new milestone for Caravaggio studies and brought public attention back to the Lombard artist. Subsequently, the scholar from the MET (Metropolitan Museum) provided a concise portrait of the painter, recalling his troubled biographical story that is reflected starkly in his works. In them, there is no space for idealization; everything is characterized by extreme realism. The scenes are reproduced in a human key, and thus also the religious themes. Posing for his paintings are figures of low social standing such as prostitutes, young boys with dirty feet, and simple people. Caravaggio’s art, therefore, offers a faithful portrait of the society of the time.
At that time, however, this choice cost Merisi dearly, as religious commissions deemed it unacceptable to display a painting depicting such subjects in a sacred place, and for this reason, on several occasions, his paintings were rejected.
An important theme of this conversation was the close collaboration that was established last year between the Accademia Carrara and the MET in New York. Keith Christiansen recalled The Musicians from the MET as one of the best examples of secular realism. The work concluded the exhibition path of “Titian and Caravaggio in Peterzano” (February 6 – May 17, 2020), an exhibition that, due to the emergency situation, was open to the public for only three weeks. After the closure of the exhibition,
The Musicians remained in Bergamo, displayed to the public until August 30.
Pio Monte della Misericordia, Naples_JAN FABRE © ph. Grafiluce_L.Romano 2019 curated by Melania Rossi 
Jan Fabre_Pio Monte della Misericordia, Naples
Jan Fabre and Caravaggio
The second important content of the webinar originates from the Neapolitan context. It is precisely in this place that a deep dialogue between contemporary art and the painting of Caravaggio was born, as explained by Jan Fabre together with the critic Giacinto Di Pietrantonio. In 2019, within the Pio Monte della Misericordia in Naples, four coral works created by Jan Fabre were placed within the chapel, seeking a connection with The Seven Works of Mercy from 1607, the altarpiece by the Lombard master. They were manually shaped and thus manifest the concrete aspect that also characterizes Caravaggio’s work. They are three-dimensional and made up of small elements of different shapes such as roses, cornetti, and pearls. Their color recalls the red of Vesuvius and the veins found in the details of Neapolitan school paintings. Furthermore, the works have a clear reference to the blood of San Gennaro, thus finding a connection in the art and biography of Merisi himself.
Jan Fabre looks to Caravaggio’s production as a constant source of inspiration for his research, even in the theatrical realm, as a director. He often presents the works of the Lombard master to his theater company to evoke the expressive power of the figures and the light of the paintings. Fabre proposes a suggestive dialogue between two worlds that may seem distant, but can actually find a correlation. In this virtual meeting, one of the most challenging endeavors was revisited: finding a relationship between contemporary art and that of Caravaggio. The latter remains mysterious, fascinating, and, as you will discover in the webinar, timeless.
