The refusal of The Death of the Virgin by Caravaggio in 1610

When you think about the Death of the Virgin representation in Art History, you can imagine her with a halo, blessed with angel around her (to caricature) That’s why, the Caravaggio painting of this well known moment in the Bible seems disturbing: he shows the virgin just like she was a normal woman. 

Michelangelo Merisi da Caravaggio, The Death of the Virgin,1602- 1606, Oil on canvas, 369 x 245 cm, Musée du Louvre, Paris.

You can easily imagine the reaction of the people who commanded this piece…This work has been refused by the people who commanded it. It was replaced by Carlo Saraceni’s piece.

To start, I will describe this painting and tell you why it has been schoking for the contemporaries of the Caravaggio;

Secondly I will do a comparison between the two works to show why the Carlo Saraceni’s painting is more “acceptable”.

Caravaggio has a sulphurous reputation when the monks of the Santa Maria Della Scalla’s church in Roma order him a painting. They know his work.

Caravaggio chooses to represent the Death of the Virgin just like she was a normal woman who has just passed away.

You can see it in her hands, her face and her swollen stomach.

He has chosen a dead prostitute for model.

Caravaggio shows death just like it is in the reality without any idealization: that’s why this piece has schoked.

The border between a Bible scene and a representation of the everyday life is tiny.

Moreover, we can see a red hanging on the top of this piece.

It can make you think about theater just like it was not the reality but a play. People who are represented are not real but actors. It gives a distanciation between the spectator and the painting.

It can make you think about an ironic suggestion by Caravaggio about religion: if all this was just a play?

This piece was refused and removed from the church. It has been replaced by Carlo Saraceni’s work.

Carlo Saraceni, The Death of the Virgin, 1610, Oil on canvas, 459X273 cm, Santa Maria Della Scala, Rome.

We can easily see the difference:

Caravaggio shows the death of a woman, Saraceni’s the death of a saint.

The Virgin is between two world: the real world and the divine world. There is no realism.

The representation of Saraceni is an archetyp used since the middle age. Caravaggio tried to do a new way for representing this scene. It has been judged as improper.

Caravaggio is well known for representing scene of reality. Monks from a Church in Roma ordered him a painting of The Death of The Virgin.

 It shows this well known scene as he always do: just like it was a real woman who died. But, it was considered improper to represent the Virgin like this.

This painting was refused. It has been replaced by Carlo Saraceni’s painting which is more conventional.

On this example, We can see how the artist, in this time, has to create painting has the one who pay it want. It shows that money and art are linked very closely.

An other example in Art history is closed to this one: it’s the Last judgment fresco by Michelangelo in the Sixtine Chapel, which has been judged has improper because people represented were naked.

Daniele Da Volterra a Michelangelo’s pupil has to dress the people on the fresco.

Michelangelo was too famous to have his work totally recovered and replaced. It asks question about the fame of artists in this time: when they are not known they don’t have a lot of liberty in their creation, when they are famous, they have a bigger room for maneuver…

Words 588. Benoit S.