From TOLEDO MUSEUM OF ART
“The Brilliance of Caravaggio: Four Paintings in Focus” opens this weekend at the Toledo Museum of Art’s Canaday Gallery.
The public opening will occur Saturday, Jan. 20 at 2 p.m. in the Libbey Court with music provided by yhe BGSU Early Music Ensemble directed by Arne Spohr and Caroline Chin.
Admission: $10 per visitor; free for Toledo Museum of Art members. The exhibition continues through April 14.
A member preview with Lawrence W. Nichols, the Toledo Museum of Art’s curator emeritus, in Canaday Gallery providing for curatorial remarks surrounding the life and works of Caravaggio. Timed intervals for curatorial remarks will begin at 5:30, 6, and 6:30 p.m. Click to register.
Relax in the reading room, browse books selected by our library staff, and enjoy Caravaggio-themed activities such as card games and music inspired by Caravaggio’s painting “The Musicians.”
This exhibition, organized by the Toledo Museum, marks the first time in more than a decade that four paintings by this renowned Italian artist have been on view together in the United States and only the second showing ever of Caravaggio’s work at TMA in its 123-year history.
The focused show pairs four iconic paintings by the renowned Italian artist Caravaggio with four works in the Toledo Museum of Art’s collection by Italian, French, Dutch and Spanish artists who found inspiration in Caravaggio’s technique and subject matter. By bringing together European masterworks, the exhibition illuminates Caravaggio’s impact and introduces audiences to a dramatic aesthetic that has relevance today.
The Caravaggio paintings featured in the exhibition will include a genre scene, an allegory and two paintings of Christian saints.
Though painted in the 1590s, his genre scenes and paintings of Christian saints closely align with modern-day human experiences with themes of threat, seduction, love, deceit and religion.
The Caravaggio paintings include “The Cardsharps” (ca. 1595), one of Caravaggio’s earliest and most highly regarded endeavors, as well as “The Musicians” (1597), “Saint Francis of Assisi in Ecstasy” (ca. 1595-96) and “Martha and Mary Magdalene” (ca. 1598).
The other paintings included are Valentin de Boulogne’s “Fortune Teller with Soldiers” (ca. 1620); Jusepe de Ribera’s “Portrait of a Musician” (1638); Hendrick ter Brugghen’s “The Supper at Emmaus” (1616); and Artemisia Gentileschi’s “Lot and his Daughters” (ca. 1636-1638).
Caravaggio Lecture series
- Lawrence W. Nichols, curator emeritus, Toledo Museum of Art, “Egregius in Urbe Pictor (An Excellent Painter in the City): Thoughts on Caravaggio’s Years in Rome,” Friday, Jan, 26, at 7 p.m. in the Little Theater.
- Keith Christiansen, curator emeritus, Metropolitan Museum of Art, “Some Thoughts on Caravaggio’s Practice of Painting from the Model,” Friday, Feb. 9, 7 p.m. . in the Little Theater.
- Bishop Daniel E. Thomas, bishop of Toledo, “Caravaggio” in conversation with Adam Levine Friday, Feb. 23, at 7 p.m. in the Great Gallery.
- Erin Benay, associate professor of Early Modern Art., Case Western Reserve University, “Understanding the Influence of Caravaggio,” Friday, Arpil 5, 7 p.m. in the Little Theater.
