Caravaggio
Michelangelo Merisi (Michele Angelo Merigi or Amerighi) da Caravaggio (, , ; 28 September 1571 – 18 July 1610) was an Italian painter active in Rome, Naples, Malta, and Sicily from the early 1590s to 1610. His paintings combine a realistic observation of the human state, both physical and emotional, with a dramatic use of lighting, which had a formative influence on Baroque painting.
Caravaggio
Other works included "Entombment", the "Madonna di Loreto" ("Madonna of the Pilgrims"), the "Grooms' Madonna", and the "Death of the Virgin". The history of these last two paintings illustrates the reception given to some of Caravaggio's art, and the times in which he lived. The "Grooms' Madonna", also known as "Madonna dei palafrenieri", painted for a small altar in Saint Peter's Basilica in Rome, remained there for just two days, and was then taken off. A cardinal's secretary wrote: "In this painting there are but vulgarity, sacrilege, impiousness and disgust...One would say it is a work made by a painter that can paint well, but of a dark spirit, and who has been for a lot of time far from God, from His adoration, and from any good thought..."