American Cinematographer - September 2007 - (Page 57)

own life. One should never forget Caravaggio grew up in a small village near Milan, in a well-to-do family. When he was 6, he suffered the traumatic loss of two significant men in his life: his father and his grandfather. When he was 12, his mother sent him to Milan, against his will, to learn painting in the workshop of a Mannerist artist, Simone Peterzano. This was a terrible wrench, a premature severing of the umbilical cord that had a considerable impact on him. In those days, the teacher and students lived promiscuously, and I maintain that Caravaggio might have been subjected to sexual abuse and violence as an adolescent. Then he lost his mother when he was 18. This was a radical and violent transition from boyhood to adulthood that led him to decide to devote himself entirely to figurative art. He went to Rome and initially lived a life of privation; it seems he lived for a time outside the city walls in a Roman tomb on the Via Appia Antica. I see the tomb as a place that symbolizes the unborn, as well as the premonition of dying young, a vision that haunted Caravaggio throughout his life. The walls of Rome signified a new period of life for him. When he finally crossed [the border they represented], he began working as an apprentice in the studios of various artists, chiefly Cavalier D’Arpino, who did not allow Caravaggio to express himself as he wished. During this time he realized he was not inspired by ornamental objects, and he began to use real people as models, but in an untraditional manner. To make his paintings, he always studied his subjects reflected in a mirror. Why did he paint with the help of a mirror? Storaro: The eye sees the reality that is in front of it and relays that to our minds. It expresses life and not art, which needs a delimited space to give expression to composition. The figures in a painting, photograph or film are positioned in a space that defines the composition. The same goes for the viewfinder on a camera. Caravaggio used a mirror to find the right composition in terms of volume and light. In many of his paintings we see figures arranged inversely to how they would appear in reality. In his first paintings he used a suffused Nordic light, that of the Lombardy region that he knew best. The light almost always comes from the left; the left is the symbol of the female, [and] reflection the symbol of the unconscious. His paintings never show a direct gaze, but there is a reflected composition, linked perhaps to a female vision and an undeniable maternal need. Caravaggio was discovered by Cardinal Del Monte, who became a new father figure to him. The cardinal brought him to his residence at Palazzo Madama and became his patron. However, Caravaggio’s personal well-being was increasingly reflected as the opposite in his painting. His subjects are always surrounded by a dark background; indeed, the external setting is of no importance whatsoever with regard to the figures portrayed. As he developed as an artist, he attributed less and less importance to the background, narrowing the light around his subjects. Giordano Bruno was burned at the stake in that period, and Caravaggio witnessed his execution, as well as the decapitation of Beatrice Cenci. From then on he painted the rite of decapitation many times, sometimes depicting himself as the victim [David and Goliath] or the executioner. The first painting he executed after those tragic experiences was Judith Beheading Holofernes. I imagine he began to paint the scene in the natural light of day, as he usually did, but then realized the light was not right for the emotion he wanted to convey. I imagine that he then closed the window and lit an oil lamp, using artificial light for the first time. To what do you attribute this change in his approach? Storaro: Caravaggio was a great filmmaker before there was film. He conceptualized the subject and the composition, chose the figures, designed the costumes and sets, and illuminated them like a master cinematographer, and like the filmmakers who came centuries later he eventually moved from natural light to artificial light. Beginning with Judith Beheading Holofernes, his subjects were almost always illuminated by a lantern. In fact, we see the full cycle in Caravaggio’s painting: first he used natural light as reflected in a mirror that framed his subjects; then he The Decapitation of St. John the Baptist, the only painting signed by the artist, is widely considered to be his masterpiece. “Caravaggio was a great filmmaker before there was film,” says Storaro. “He conceptualized the subject and the composition, chose the figures, designed the costumes and sets, and illuminated them like a master cinematographer.” American Cinematographer 57

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American Cinematographer - September 2007

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