Madonna dei Pellegrini
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| Madonna di Loreto or Madonna dei Pellegrini |
|---|
| Michelangelo Merisi da Caravaggio , 1604–1606 |
| Oil on canvas |
| 260 × 150 cm |
| Basilica of Sant'Agostino in Campo Marzio , Rome |
The Madonna dei Pellegrini (Pilgrim Madonna) or Madonna di Loreto (Loreto Madonna) is an oil painting by Michelangelo Merisi da Caravaggio (1571-1610), which was created between 1604 and 1606 . It is located in the Cappella Cavalletti of the Basilica of Sant'Agostino in Campo Marzio in Rome , one of the important churches on the pilgrimage route from Porta Flaminia to St. Peter's Basilica . The subject of the picture takes up this.
history
On September 14, 1603, the widow of Ermete Cavalletti, a member of the Arch Brotherhood of Santissima Trinità dei Pellegrini and accountant of the Apostolic Chamber (Computista della Camera Apostolica), was awarded a chapel in the Basilica of Sant'Agostino in Rome by the Augustinians . She had them consecrated to the Madonna of Loreto according to the last will of her husband, who is buried there . Shortly before his death on July 21, 1602, Ermete Cavalletti was commissioned to plan a pilgrimage organized by his brotherhood to the Marian shrine of Loreto . The pilgrims in Loreto came barefoot and, according to custom, kissed both the steps to the church and the threshold of the house of Mary, which, according to legend, had brought angels from Palestine to Loreto. The men did this bareheaded while the women kept their headgear on. The pilgrims of the Holy Year 1600 were received in Rome no differently . Their manifestly religiously connoted poverty was considered sacred.
The heirs of Cavalletti commissioned Caravaggio to create an altarpiece for this chapel. The members of the brotherhood included important clients of Caravaggio such as Ottavio Costa, Vicenzo Giustiniani and Ciriaco Mattei, so that the order was mediated by them or by the Augustinians directly. Caravaggio was known for previous works at two nearby places of activity: for the Cappella Cerasi in the Augustinian church of Santa Maria del Popolo he had the painting The Conversion of St. Paul and The Crucifixion Peter painted and in 1599 received the commission for the vocation of St. Matthew in the Cappella Contarelli of the Church of San Luigi dei Francesi .
So far, no further reliable facts have been passed on about the history of the painting. On March 2, 1606, the Augustinians removed the Vesper picture from the previous owner from the altar of the chapel and handed it over to Cardinal Scipione Borghese . In the same year the chapel was rebuilt, the new marble altar was set and the altarpiece was demonstrably placed in the chapel in its intended place.
As one of Caravaggio's important public works, it is mentioned and heavily criticized by well-known art theorists and art historians of the 17th century such as Giulio Mancini , Giovanni Pietro Bellori , Joachim von Sandrart and Filippo Baldinucci . Due to the great naturalness of the details, especially the depiction of poverty and humility of simple pilgrims from the people, it caused a great stir. The unfamiliar external profanity and sobriety, the unclassical "indignity" of the characters depicted heroically by no means caused the accusation of a lack of "decency" ( decoro ). Caravaggio was then called, with some justification, the “painter of dirty feet”. Giovanni Baglione , one of Caravaggio's intimate enemies and competitors, writes in his artist biography that “a violent chatter ( schiamazzo ) began among the people ”. No longer the historical pictorial tradition of the maniera grande , but the bare everyday reality suddenly possesses the highest possible reference possibilities within the picture. Caravaggio initiated the departure from Mannerism and influenced a whole generation of artists through his new style and works, almost all over Europe.
description
The picture shows the Madonna crowned with a halo in a red and blue tinted robe, in her arms the baby Jesus resting on a white cloth. The Madonna stands with bare feet, in the classic posture of the ancient statue of Thusnelda , on the stone step of a wide portal with a finely worked marble frame - Mary as a symbol for the church welcomes the pilgrims. Both greet and pay attention to the people kneeling in front of them, the Christ child raised his right arm in blessing. Particularly noteworthy is the neckline of the Madonna, which the northern Italian Lorenzo Lotto had already cultivated. Caravaggio also used them in other pictures, e.g. B. with the Blessed Mother on the run and the Palafrenieri Madonna . The attitude symbolizes vulnerability, humility and especially the devotion to the child, to Jesus.
Two pilgrims, a man and a woman, kneel with clasped hands in front of the Madonna and Child. The man is wearing a leather shoulder cloak and leaning his pilgrim's staff on his shoulder. The poor pilgrim's bare feet, directly facing the viewer, are dirty and swollen from the long pilgrimage. He is accompanied by an old woman with a simple headdress and also a pilgrim's staff. The contrast between the clothing of the Virgin and the two pilgrims is striking. These are presented in a simple and poor presentation. The adjacent masonry shows clear signs of aging - raw bricks and broken plaster illustrate this. The house shown is symbolically the house of Mary in Nazareth.
One of Caravaggio's expressive innovations can be recognized here: the divine world of the virgin and the child opens up to a humanity with dirty feet. The back of the pilgrim literally imposes itself on the viewer. The earthly aspect of human existence is shown to him in the presence of the divine. Caravaggio follows the example of Michelangelo, who painted the most famous rear view in art history: the God the Father creating the sun and moon on the ceiling of the Sistine Chapel .
Supporting the compositional diagonal, bright light falls from the top left onto the scene and lifts the Madonna with the child and the two pilgrims from the dark background. The execution in the chiaroscuro technique is exaggerated by Caravaggio in a dramatic form and thus establishes a new expression of image design, tenebrism . In a stage that is hardly defined by spatial information, the figures and objects have to assert themselves in their physical weight against the surrounding darkness. The scene is not illuminated by real light sources, but rather bundles of rays that are inserted outside of the scene model the individual figures. In addition, the light-dark contrast serves to dramatically increase the image concept. The relief-like arrangement of the few figures, the strong reduction to a few image contents, the movement supported by light and shadow, the strict structure of the composition and the model-like realism without exaggerated pathos in the pilgrim figures increase each other's effect.
Trivia
In the older literature it is often reported that a mistress of Caravaggio by the name of Lena was the model for the Pilgrim Madonna , the Palafrenieri Madonna and the death of Mary . The basis for this assumption is a touching story, invented by Giovanni Battista Passeri sixty years later, of the respectable, poor girl who was Caravaggio's model and who rejected a notary's proposal of marriage.
literature
- Giovanni Baglione: Le vite de pittori, scultori et architetti. Dal pontificato di Gregorio XIII del 1572 in fino a'tempi di Papa Urbano VIII nel 1642 , ed. v. Jacob Hess and Herwarth Röttgn, 3 vols. Vatican City, 1995.
- Sybille Ebert-Schifferer: Caravaggio , Beck-Verlag, Munich 2012, ISBN 978-3-406-63922-7 .
- Pamela M. Jones: Altarpieces and Their Viewers in the Churches of Rome from Caravaggio to Guido Reni , Ashgate Publishing ltd., Hampshire, England 2008, ISBN 978-0-7546-6179-5 : The place of poverty in Seicento Rome: bare feet, humility, and the pilgrimage of life in Caravaggio's Madonna of Loreto in the church of Sant'Agostino, pp. 75ff.
- Andrea Lonardo: La Madonna dei Pellegrini di Caravaggio nella basilica di Sant'Agostino in Roma: dalla leggenda alla realtà storica ; [1]
- Sebastian Schütze: Caravaggio - The complete work , Taschen-Verlag, Cologne 2009, ISBN 978-3-8365-0181-1 .
- Caravaggio - in: Lexikon der Kunst / Volume 3, Karl Müller Verlag, Erlangen 1994, ISBN 3-86070-452-4 .
Web links
Individual evidence
- ↑ Pamela M. Jones: p. 75
- ^ Sybille Ebert-Schifferer: Caravaggio, p. 175
- ↑ Sebastian Schütze: Caravaggio, p. 122
- ↑ Andrea Lonardo: La Madonna dei Pellegrini
- ↑ Sebastian Schütze: Caravaggio, p. 268
- ↑ Lexicon of Art: Caravaggio, Volume 3, p. 102
- ^ Giovanni Baglione: Vite di Caravaggio p. 66
- ↑ Lexicon of Art: Caravaggio, Volume 3, p. 103
- ↑ Sybille Ebert-Schifferer: Caravaggio, p. 179
- ^ Sybille Ebert-Schifferer: Caravaggio, p. 67
- ↑ Andrea Lonardo: La Madonna dei Pellegrini
- ↑ Lexicon of Art: Caravaggio, Volume 3, p. 102
- ↑ Sybille Ebert-Schifferer: p. 191