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Caravaggio vs. The Camera Obscura. July 18, 1610: Porto Ercole, Italy.
The ports and city on the northeastern shore of the Tuscan ...
Submitted by littlebommer on March 6, 2008
Category: History Other
Words: 1483 | Pages: 6
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July 18, 1610: Porto Ercole, Italy. The ports and city on the northeastern shore of the Tuscan city remained under Spanish jurisdiction. Two days prior, a man whom resembled a Spanish outlaw, was arrested and imprisoned upon arrival in the port. Authorities were unable to identify the man's true identity because his real identity was also that of a convicted outlaw, Michelangelo Merisi. Some time before he was released from the jail, Merisi contracted malaria and it would claim his life on this day. Merisi, known throughout Europe as simply "Caravaggio" (after the city he was from), was not just a murderer on the run; Caravaggio was a famous artist, made infamously popular by his paintings of graphic and sometimes violent biblical scenes. Even today artists, historians, and students marvel at the expression and realism Caravaggio maintained throughout his master works (6). In 1891, historians and artists began to investigate the possibility that many Renaissance painters traced their masterpieces with the help of a camera obscura. Today they are still finding evidence that questions the talent of some of history's most astounding masters (10). But could Caravaggio have really forged his entire career; or are the mistakes made by the "masters of tracing" being wrongfully assigned to the real innovators of art?
First, let's understand what exactly a camera obscura really is. As defined in Marilyn Stokstad's Art History, the camera obscura is an early developed camera-like device used mostly in the Renaissance. Later it would be used widely for recording images from nature. Construction and operation of the camera was fairly simple: beginning with a dark room or box, a hole would allow light in from one side of the room. The camera then operates by flashing a bright light through the opening (and occasionally passing through a lens). An inverted image of an object from outside of the camera would then be cast onto the inside wall of the...
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