Caravaggio and his followers

Rest on the Flight into Egypt - Caravaggio

The museum

“Caravaggio and his followers: art of 17th century: comparison between Italian and Flemish art”

Curators

Mirka Vecchietti, Elisa Fabbri and Federica Merli

Description of the museum

The title of the museum is: “Caravaggio and his followers: art of 17th century: comparison between Italian and Flemish art”.

It’s in Milan, in the “Vittorio Emanuele” Gallery and his curators are: Mirka Vecchietti, Elisa Fabbri and Federica Merli.

It’s named after the period of the artwork hosted: there are paintings by Caravaggio and some paintings by other Flemish painters like Vermeer and Rubens. They are followers of Caravaggio and they use his pictorial technique.

All the works are oil paintings and they are arranged in two rooms.

In the first room there are Caravaggio’s paintings and they are in chronological order. As you enter, you can admire the paintings in this way: “Rest on the Flight into Egypt”, “Mary Magdalene”, “John, the Baptist” and “The Martyrdom of Saint Ursula”.

In the second room there are two Flemish paintings: “Christ’s charge to Peter” by Rubens and “The Astronomer” by Vermeer.

It’s interesting and important to visit this museum because you can get to know the style of Caravaggio and you can understand that other painters were inspired by this famous Italian painter.

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AUTHOR: Caravaggio

TITLE: “Rest on the Flight into Egypt”

DATE: 1595

MATERIAL AND TECHNIQUE: Oil on canvas

The most meaningful painting in our collection is “Rest on the Flight into Egypt”.

Tis painting shows a different style of Caravaggio, in fact, in his maturity, he uses strong contrast between lights and darknesses; this is something absent in this painting.

Nature has an important and allegorical role: the small plants and the branches next to Joseph, on the left-hand side, represent dryness and poverty; on the right-hand side, there is the Virgin with Child and the nature is luxuriant. In the bottom, under the Virgin, there is: the bay tree that symbolizes the typical virtue of Mary, the virginity, the cardoon and the thorn rose symbolize the Passion and the yew represents the Resurrection.

The other interpretation says that in this painting, Caravaggio wants to represent a way of safety for the Christians. In fact, on the left-hand side, there is Joseph with the elements of poverty then, on the right-hand side, there is Jesus and the Virgin that represent the bliss.

The painting is tied to “The Song of Songs” moment there is a link to the biblical book because Caravaggio draws on some paragraphs of the test in the his scenes. An angel spirits the scene in two parts, it’s playing while Joseph is holding a score. The angel has the traditional divine clothes.

This painting is important for music, too. The score that Joseph is holding is by Noel Bauldwijin, he realized it for the “Song of Songs”. The violin is very interesting, too, because his sting is broken and this symbolizes the fragility of the life and its precariousness between poverty and Eternal Life.

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