There’s a man I’ve been obsessed with for some time – dark, tempestuous, dangerous, an artistic genius.  A bad boy; rule breaker. The kind I’ve been attracted to, but not the kind I married.  My husband knows a little about this obsession, but he’s not too worried. Michelangelo de Caravaggio the painter lived far away in Italy, some 400 years ago. Donald may have a reason to worry that he doesn’t yet know: my travel fantasy to visit the significant places of Caravaggio’s life: Milan, Rome, Naples, Sicily and Malta  and my pilgrimage to see as much of his art wherever it is before I die. There, I’ve said it.

My relationship with Caravaggio started some twenty-five years ago, not auspiciously.  During the time I was living in New York City, there was an exhibit of Caravaggio’s collected work at the Metropolitan Museum of Art. My sister, Sheila, who had spent junior year abroad studying Italian art was planning to go and told me how exciting it was to have these painting coming to New York.  So I went —with Sheila, I believe. And, bleh…the dark, dark canvases, with lots of pale flesh, much of it young and male, and those patches of red, bloody red.  Pain, sadness, violence. Nothing uplifting that I could recall.  Caravaggio, I concluded, was shocking for the purpose of shocking, not much more. Not a dime was spent in the gift shop, for print or coaster or mug – and now I’m sorry.

Strangely, it was Rick Steves, the travel guru, who played cupid to my renewed interest in Caravaggio. For my first trip to Italy with Mary Jane, I picked up Rick’s guide, and found it insightful and useful for choosing the sites and art most worth seeing. He’d included Caravaggio’s paintings of St. Peter and St. Paul at Santa Maria del Popolo; it was on our route, so we stopped. Dark church, dimly-lit chapel, the paintings one across from another, knocked my socks off.  First image that comes at the viewer, from both paintings, is a great big ass – that is to say, a rump. One of a horse, one of a man. Must be a joke, I thought. Some good old nose-thumbing. But then I saw the composition, the faces, the light, and I knew they were deeply spiritual paintings derived from human experience and emotion. Peter, old but virile, upside down on a cross being raised by common laborers doing a job, a hard job. Paul is flat on his back, stuffing knocked out, paralyzed by the message from God, as another old fellow takes the reins of his horse. The paintings, the artist, had reached across centuries to smack me across the cheek, upside the head – powerful, dangerous.

From there, I made Mary Jane hunt and hunt with me for Caravaggio’s Calling of St. Mathew at the French church in Rome, after many wrong turns and asking the way: three part panel in a side chapel, the coin-fed lights kept going out – still, it was the same sensation. Galleria Borghese, the Uffizi, I sought out Caravaggio, his early paintings – pagan, sensual, the later ones – spiritual but not religious, saints with dirty feet and barely a glimpse of a halo. Supper in Emmaus at Pinocoteca de Brera, Milan. In Dublin on a trip with my son’s scout troop, I needed to see The Capture of Christ at the National Gallery, while others went to the jamboree.  I’ve got Caravaggio guides with full color prints, books about the people and events behind the paintings – and now I’ve got to see them: Death of the Virgin, Paris; Doubting of Thomas, Potsdam; Flagellation of Christ, Naples; Christ at the Column, Rouen; Beheading of the Baptist, Malta. Adoration of the Shepherds in Messina. And more.

Caravaggio’s no role model for artists: short, tragic, violent life.  Fame and money didn’t do much for him. His recognition centuries later didn’t do much either. But out of his life came his paintings, and there are none that I like better. I feel for him, too, because so much of his misery came from being misunderstood – not so much his technique, but his message, his vision.  I have not a fraction of his talent, but much of the time I feel misunderstood as a writer.

Now I read they’ve verified some of Caravaggio’s remains – in Ravenna.  I’d really like to visit; to do him homage.  He left a rich and plentiful legacy – lots to see. I’d better get going. And if I have a hope to see more of Caravaggio, maybe it’s time for me to tell Donald about “the other man”.