Caravaggio's Taking of Christ: Great Art Explained

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The Taking of Christ is a painting by Michelangelo Merisi da Caravaggio. The subject is the moment that the son of God is betrayed with a kiss, and arrested in the garden of Gethsemane.

Caravaggio’s approach to religious art was shocking and controversial in his time, his work was censored, dismissed and criticised, but it would lead to an entirely new kind of Christian art.

The intensity of his paintings was matched only by his tempestuous lifestyle.

The same year he painted this picture, Caravaggio was imprisoned for libel. A year later he was arrested for throwing a plate of hot artichokes at a waiter, a year after that, he wounded an official, and then finally, in 1606 he killed a man… and would spend the rest of his life on the run.

More than any other painter in history, Caravaggio understood what it was like to be pursued by the authorities.

CREDITS

The Taking of Christ is on permanent loan to The National gallery of Ireland, Dublin

Caravaggio's paintings used in this film are in the public domain in its country of origin and other countries and areas where the copyright term is the author's life plus 100 years or fewer.

Caravaggio Techniques ©Artenet - https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=w0q2udIX0fs
Godfather Part II ©Paramount Pictures
Sunset Boulevard ©Paramount Pictures
Caravaggio ©cinevista and BFI films

royalty free Music by Giorgio Di Campo for FreeSound Music http://freesoundmusic.eu https://www.facebook.com/freemusicfor... https://youtube.com/freesoundmusic original video: https://youtu.be/IwBYlLnzYtc download mp3: https://link-to.net/49870/RockAroundT...

Intro music: Maria Callas sings "Casta Diva" (Bellini: Norma, Act 1)

"Theme" music: JS Bach “Sonata for violin solo No.1 in G Minor”

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Copyright Disclaimer under section 107 of the Copyright Act of 1976, allowance is made for “fair use” for purposes such as criticism, comment, news reporting, teaching, scholarship, education and research. Fair use is a use permitted by copyright statute that might otherwise be infringing.

In the turn of the 17th century

the counter-reformation was at its height

and the church was commissioning
hundreds of new artworks

to be used as powerful weapons
of propaganda

against the Protestant faith.

Religious art had lost its way

and artists were being asked to produce
emotionally engaging and intense works,

accessible and realistic enough
to inspire the masses.

Caravaggio who would rather
spend time in a tavern than a church

understood the masses more than most.

He had arrived in Rome in 1592,
young, broke and homeless,

having already been in trouble
with the authorities in Milan.

Rome was a city where nuns and cardinals
rub shoulders with gangs and prostitutes.

And the new arrival would fit right in.

It is impossible to separate
Caravaggio the criminal

from Caravaggio the painter
of sacred images.

One could simply not exist
without the other.

He inhabited a world
where honour was everything,

the slightest insult
needed to be revenged.

And the hair triggered Caravaggio

would be forever
on the lookout for trouble.

Caravaggio broke the rules of art
as well as his life.

He would look at the dark side
of the Christian story

and include its more sordid
and unpalatable side.

Caravaggio's art would represent
the world as it is,

and not how it should be.

Much to some of the clergy's horror,

he accentuated the poverty
and common humanity

of the Christ and his followers,

by using ordinary working people
as his models.

Some of them considered to be
the scum of the city:

street workers, prostitutes,
beggars and rent boys.

He would scandalise Rome

by portraying the Virgin Mary
with dirty feet,

Saint Peter as a terrified
and bewildered old man,

The church had asked for realism
and Caravaggio would give it to them.

The strange story of betrayal by a kiss

is a subject that has fascinated
Italians for centuries,

The subject had been painted
by hundreds of artists,

but never with such brutal honestity.

It is useful to compare
Caravaggio's version of the betrayal

with an earlier version
by an equally revolutionary,

but very different artist, Giotto.

He gives us a more complete
and chaotic picture of the events

that will lead to Jesus' crucifixion.

Caravaggio ignores
the peripheral characters

and pares it right back to the essentials,
the emotional core.

We are used to seeing the close-up
with the cinema and TV

but it was unusual in the 17th century
to have scenes cropped so tight.

Gioto's work is taking place
on a remote stage,

Caravaggio's just inches from your face.

Giotto has Christ being arrested
by an army.

Caravaggio's looks more
like a street brawl.

Both versions take place at night,
as the Gospels tell us

"after the evening meal and prayers".

Caravaggio's night-time however

is a world where violence
hides in shadows.

There is no background, no architecture
or gardens, just darkness.

Only the moonlight off screen
lights the scene

— from left to right, the preferred
direction of light Caravaggio used.

It is almost like a spotlight on Jesus
and Judas and suggests divine light.

Although the man at the far side
is holding a lantern,

it is in reality an ineffective source.

Then the light reflected in the armour

seems to becoming
from the viewer's direction.

In Giotto's version, it is obvious
we are witnessing a religious event.

In Caravaggio's version, he asks us:

"What would it be like

"if Jesus looked like an ordinary man
when he was arrested?"

"How would we know?"

Caravaggio emphasises Christ's humanity
rather than his divinity as the Lord.

Giotto has a huge crowd,

but there are just seven characters
in Caravaggio's version.

He limits the mob to four men
but a greater number is implied

by how crowded in they are.

If we lighten the picture,

we can make out traces of lances,
suggesting further soldiers.

The main characters
from left to right are:

John, Jesus, Judas, a soldier,

another soldier, a lamp bearer,

and behind him another soldier.

Both versions have him
being pulled back by his cloak,

referenced in the Bible
as an unnamed figure.

The identity of the fleeing figure
in both versions has been disputed

or mostly just ignored.

There is no definitive answer recorded
but I think Caravaggio and Giotto

intended it to be John the Evangelist.

John is the youngest disciple,
and so he is generally depicted beardless.

Caravaggio has him beardless
and wearing red and green

and, as we can see, these are colours

often, but not exclusively
associated with John.

In Caravaggio's pared back version,

I think John represents
all the fleeing apostles,

and as John was the most beloved,
he would be seen as a counterpoint

for Judas the betrayer.

What is interesting is how John and Jesus
have identical hair,

and seem to be merging
together as one being.

Christ will go away and be crucified

and John will escape and serve
as propagator and protector of the faith.

The image suggests that the church,
which will be represented by the apostles,

emanates directly from Christ himself.

John's cloak is like a halo over Christ.

The red could symbolise "martyrdom"
or the blood of Christ.

Giotto also uses the red symbolically.

One of the first things that strikes you
about Jesus in both images,

is his lack of emotion.

but, according to the Bible, Jesus knew
Judas would betray him,

and that — according
to Christian tradition,

would bring salvation to humanity.

So Jesus' sorrowful reaction

is one of resignation rather than shock.

I think in Caravaggio's version,
Christ's acceptance is there,

but we also see fear
of the imminent future.

In Caravggio's version, Judas is a much
more nuanced and human character.

than the villain that Giotto makes him.

His face is a powerful study
in contradicting emotions,

of love and jealousy, hate and pride.

Judas appears haunted by what is to come.

Having just betrayed Jesus, he seems
to immediately regret it

and grips onto him for dear life,

forcing the soldier to remove his hands.

Even in the Gospels themselves,
Judas is never seen

with the psychological complexity
that Caravaggio shows us.

In most portrayals, Judas either acts
under the influence of Satan

or out of simple greed.

We see very little of any
of the soldiers features,

they are faceless as well as ruthless.

The Roman officer's highly
polished metal clad arm

is placed in the very centre
of the canvas.

The harsh black metal serves
as a powerful contrast

with the vulnerable flesh
of the defenceless Christ.

The composition is clearly inspired

by a woodcut made
100 years before by Dürer.

It has been suggested that the highly
reflective surface of the armour

serves as a mirror.

Caravaggio may be holding up a mirror
to us, the viewer,

to remind us that theologically speaking
we are sinners by default.

The soldier's arm, along
with the swirling drapery

of John's cloak forms
"a picture within a picture"

emphasising the main story.

Caravaggio has done this before.

This is a self-portrait of Caravaggio.

There have been artists who put themselves
in their pictures before.

But not with such a "starring role"
as a character.

Caravaggio does it in several paintings,

most dramatically here,

painted at a time when there was
a bounty on his head.

In 1602, he was at the height of his fame,

and would have been recognisable
in the painting.

There are numerous theories

as to why he placed himself
so prominently in the picture,

but we can't deny a bit of narcissism.

The lamp he holds is not strong enough
to light the whole scene,

but symbolically, the lamp's light falls
on his own right hand

the instrument of his genius.

In the same way, his counterpart,
John's right hand, is visible:

His writing hand,

as the author of the book of Revelations.

Compositionally, Caravaggio

makes the parallels
of himself and John explicit.

According to counter-reformation thinking,

Caravaggio, as a painter
of Christian images,

has a purpose in propagating the faith.

And it is possible that compositionally,

he is placing himself
in the lineage of Christian preaching,

that begins with the apostles.

Caravaggio had his own reasons
for believing that redemption

could come to the most unlikely sinner.

Caravaggio's use of "Tenebrism" or extreme
"Chiaroscuro", violent contrasts,

required unusual working practices.

He worked in a dark room
using high lamps to direct the light.

He was once taken to court

for knocking a hole
in the ceiling of his appartment

to let a shaft of light through.

As we've seen in previous videos,

the ground coat has a huge influence
on the finished work.

Unlike most artists
who used a mid-tone ground

Caravaggio used
a very dark red brown base.

We can actually make out the dark ground
on the edges of the painting,

where previously a frame would have been.

We also see it
in the shadows and mid-tones

in a technique called "a risparmio".

Artists were warned
that painting light tones on dark

— the opposite from how
most of artists work —

would muddy the colours.

But Caravaggio used the ground
to build up shadows,

and show the dramatic contrast
of light and shade.

Infrared scans show us that unusually
he did not do preliminary sketches

but painted straight onto the canvas
with minimal preparation.

There are no drawings in existence
by Caravaggio.

He worked with live studio models
and would plot their positions

directly onto the canvas,

marking the primer coat with a point
or the back of his brush

to make a general outline.

Once he had this as his guide,
he could repose his models

in the same position when neded.

Artits like Leonardo da Vinci
would paint slowly,

layer by layer, letting each coat dry
before applying another.

Caravaggio however would paint
extremely fast

while the undercoat was still not dry,

and blend colours without waiting
for each application to dry.

Having the model he was paying in situ

accounted for the speed
at which he painted.

For flesh tones, he would blend in
lead-white

in increasingly delicate strokes

and for final highlights
he would use pure lead white.

Infrared images revealed he rarely
reworked "The Taking of Christ"

or changed the composition
in the painting process.

An exception is that a faint outline
of a second ear

shows that Juda's head
was originally higher.

"The Taking of Christ" was considered
a great masterpiece in his day,

but it would soon disappear
under mysterious circumstances

for 300 years.

Although famous during his lifetime,

Caravaggio was forgotten about
almost immediately after he died.

He simply went out of fashion.

But he was rediscovered by critics
in the early 20th century.

and although they knew
he had painted "The Taking of Christ"

it had not been seen for centuries

and as far as they were concerned
it was lost forever.

Ciriaco Mattei had commissioned
the painting from Caravaggio in 1602,

but by the time it was sold
by his descendants 200 years later,

to a Scotsman

it was thought to be a copy
by Gerard van Honthurst.

An Irish woman was on holiday
in Scotland in 1921,

when she bought the painting
in an antique shop

and brought it home to Dublin.

She later donated the painting
to Jesuit priests in Dublin,

who hung it in their dining room,

where it would remain. gathering dust,
for the next sixty years.

In 1990, the priests sent it
to be restored

and to the art world's schock, an expert
discovered that it wasn't a copy.

It was in fact a genuine Caravaggio.

In 1993, the long lost painting
finally went on view to the public.

After the murderer in Rome, Caravaggio
went to Naples, then Malta, then Sicily.

Everywhere he went,
he painted masterpieces

but he also created even more enemies.

After the life on the run,
he died alone on a beach in Tuscany.

Caravaggio would create
profoundly spiritual work,

while living his life in the gutter.

His paintings are compelling,
precisely because of this dichotomy.

They have an overwhelming truthfulness

that appeals to us
on a deep emotional level.

Caravaggio rejected the dominant
tradition of Italian painting

and painted Christian scenes

as if they were taking place
right here, right now.

In a strange parallel
of "The Taking of Christ"

his body also disappeared for centuries,

only to be discovered in 2010.

New tests showed that
it wasn't syphilis or malaria

or one of his many enemies
that killed him, as was thought.

It was lead poisoning — from his paints.