Michelangelo Merisi da Caravaggio,
a troublemaker who gloried in sadistic
violence, especially in his paintings,
was the Prince of Darkness of Baroque,
the pioneer of the style dubbed tenebrism.
Together with his realistic portrayals
of the subjects who populate his canvases,
“the terrible naturalism that attracted
and ravished human sight”, as Scannelli put it,
they are the distinctive features of his work.
His painting, The Crucifixion of St. Peter,
commissioned by Monsignor Tiberio Cerasi,
is an archetype of Caravaggio’s tenebrism
and how he exults in depicting brutality.
The distribution of the four individuals
conjures the shape of St. Andrew’s cross.
A beam of light traverses the canvas
from the top left of the frame
to the bottom righthand corner
illuminating St. Peter’s torso, left arm,
and hand nailed to the crosspiece,
every muscle and sinew of the martyr
tensed. A blend of pain and terror cross
the face of the Saint. High to the left,
the only executioner to escape anonymity
embraces Peter’s shins and the upright
of the cross to help a second executioner
whose woollen jacket is rucked up
by the rope he’s using to haul the cross
upside down as it is placed in the hole,
dug by the third executioner’s shovel.
Petra, the rock in the foreground,
evokes Peter’s name, the rock
upon which the Christian Church
is unified, emphasised further
by the shadowy rocky landscape
in the background darkness.
(Image is of the author; would be strange if another fellow, now wouldn’t it?)
Saragun Springs 
Tony
Again you describe an artistic work with art. And that ain’t easy to do. Thank you for bringing these (albeit disturbing) wonderful images to the attention of folks (such as I) who knows little about them.
Leila
LikeLike
Educational in terms of both the artist and the painting. The final image of darkness lingers.
LikeLiked by 1 person
Tony
Caravaggio’s pictures look like they could be scenes from movies that were made yesterday. He was an outlaw artist centuries ahead of his time. I appreciate how this poem starts with crucial snippets from his biography then swoops into describing the painting. You manage to achieve an objectivity in the face of utter horror which matches Caravaggio’s own. They say the poet Homer turned horror into beauty in his works because horror exists right alongside the human longing for beauty. Saint Peter was the wisest and the most human, humane, and enthusiastic of the disciples. Even he had no idea what the Master really meant until long after the Master was gone.
Dale
LikeLike