“Caravaggio and the Masters of Light”, 📍 From March 7 to June 7 at the Historical Museum of the Infantry.
On display are 23 works divided into six sections, selected with the aim of capturing the legacy of the greatest revolutionary of chiaroscuro and dramatic lighting:
Caravaggio.
“Caravaggio and Caravaggism represent a turning point in Christian civilization,” explained Professor Mazzeo, lecturer in Art History at the Academy of Fine Arts in Rome.
“The representation of the sky gives a sense of infinity, fullness, and serenity.
Michelangelo Merisi opens up to immensity: his light surprises and comes from all sides.
It was in his mind, in his thoughts, and it reaches the truest and most realistic humanity.”
With Caravaggio, a pioneer of the Baroque, painting opens up a new horizon.
“His is the hand of Jesus that guides and poses a great question: is freedom infinite or not?”
Mazzeo concluded with a declaration of love: “I love the Caravaggisti, Caravaggism, and Caravaggio.”
Welcoming guests in the candlelit courtyard was Lieutenant Colonel Orazio Berlinghieri, director of the museum, who recalled the value of the two structures he directs as custodians of Italian history.
Immediately afterwards, Salvatore Lacagnina, director of Navigare srl, proudly highlighted the work carried out:
“We have brought 10 exhibitions and 300,000 visitors. The Historical Museum of the Infantry is a place that even the Romans did not know about.”
The evening continued with a sequence of slides of Caravaggio’s works projected onto the facade of the building, a prelude to the entrance to the exhibition, which introduced the entrance to the evocative exhibition.
A journey through the central themes of the master’s poetics: physicality, violence, death — as in the famous Judith Beheading Holofernes.
The itinerary recounts the strength and fragility of Merisi’s vision through his students and followers.
Many will repeat his forms and colors, but few will succeed in capturing his profound human and religious dimension.
It is precisely this revolution that opens the doors to the Baroque.
In Caravaggio’s painting, the human and the divine meet: the saints do not hide their feelings, and their humanity no longer seems unattainable.
An emblematic example is Madonna with Child and Saint John. However, the most authentic feature remains the play of light and shadow.
For Caravaggio, light is not just painting:
it is knowledge, revelation, human and divine.
And sometimes, simply, Grace.
