TASCHEN 45th EDITION : Caravaggio. The Complete Works. HC

Caravaggio, or more accurately Michelangelo Merisi da Caravaggio (1571–1610), was a legend even in his own lifetime. Notorious bad boy of Italian painting, the artist was at once celebrated and controversial: Violent in temper, precise in technique, a creative master, and a man on the run. This edition offers a comprehensive reassessment of Caravaggio’s entire ?uvre with a catalogue raisonne of his works. Each painting is reproduced with recent, high production photography allowing for dramatic close-ups with Caravaggios ingenious details of looks and gestures. Five introductory chapters analyze Caravaggios artistic career from his early struggle to make a living, through his first public commissions in Rome, and his growing celebrity status. They look at his increasing daring with lighting and with a boundary-breaking naturalism which allowed even biblical events to unfold with an unprecedented immediacy before the viewer.