London specialist in art history revealed the secrets of Caravaggio painting

Using the new possibilities of producing glass and optics, admiring the light, as we do today, Caravaggio found a way to make realistic copies of the paintings that the camera obscura designed on the wall.

The leading expert presented his new book on Caravaggio to the public, which presents a modern look at this controversial artist. Caravaggio’s Eye by Clovis Whitfield crosses Caravaggio’s portrait as a street brawler with homosexual inclinations. Instead, it offers an image of a revolutionary who found application of new technology, changing the course of the history of painting.

Whitefield, a London specialist in art history and an art dealer of paintings by old masters, found the answer to the question about the secret of Caravaggio’s success. He speaks of the artist as a master who took the revolutionary path of depicting reality. Caravaggio introduced innovations, but rather in technology than in the style of writing, in particular, using an intricate pinhole camera, as well as curved or parabolic mirrors.

Using the new possibilities of producing glass and optics, admiring the light, like we do today, Caravaggio found a way to make realistic copies of the paintings that the camera obscura designed on the wall. The results were sensational. So he turned from a craftsman making orders for a gift shop, into a well-known artist throughout Europe.

The book, entitled “The Eye of Caravaggio,” which will be published shortly, reveals the topic of Caravaggio, who unconventionally approached the use of technological developments that were very meager at the time, to make the first major changes in our understanding of how the human eye sees. He was not limited to the work of earlier masters and, unlike his colleagues, who blindly followed their teachers, was ready for innovation. He was the first to exactly copy the images seen on the streets of Rome.

The arrogance of Caravaggio in the context of his discovery caused a negative reaction of art institutions. Then the artist’s profession was based on many years of vocational training in studios, which is not far from the medieval guilds, where artists depicted stories from scripture, based on paintings that arose in the mind. The students followed the tradition of the masters, but the example of Caravaggio showed them that they can start their own business right away, portraying everything they see around. The very idea that an untrained apprentice who does not even know how to draw can abandon the learning process and still paint beautiful paintings, aroused protest.

“Caravaggio’s work was not accepted in the context of modern scientific discoveries, perhaps because his audience was from the world of art,” says Whitefield. “Modern science has helped a lot in understanding the method developed by Caravaggio, and serving as a key factor in identifying original works.”

Whitefield says that there is not much information that would allow us to judge the sexual interests of Caravaggio, but the fact that many women have been associated with him makes his homosexuality unlikely. The historian believes that we should look at Caravaggio with an unreserved look, as at a person who used unique scientific findings in order to forever change the history of art. This is an incredible step for a person who died at the age of only 38 in 1610.

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Clovis Whitefield is the owner of Whitfield Fine Art in London. He was educated at Cambridge University and the Cortold Institute of Art. Then, as a professor, he lectured at the invitation of Indiana University and organized numerous exhibitions: from England and Sicento in 1973 to the recent Caravaggio Friends and Foes. He is the author of many exhibition catalogs and articles on seventeenth-century art.

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