Caravaggism

Around 1600 the Italian baroque artist Michelangelo Merisi da Caravaggio made a radical break with this genre by painting figures in a much more realistic style. He portrayed gods and saints as ordinary people with wrinkled faces, uncombed hair and dirty feet, using sharp light-dark contrasts, dramatic effects and clearly structured compositions. His style spread rapidly throughout Europe, and by 1620 he had a particularly large number of followers in the city of Utrecht. These artists were known as Caravaggisti. Dutch painters such as Gerard van Honthorst, Hendrick ter Brugghen and Dirck van Baburen visited Rome to study the style, and although Rembrandt never visited Italy, he certainly drew inspiration from Caravaggio’s lighting effects.