Caravaggio: Ahead of His Time

Anyone who appreciates the earthy splendor of Caravaggio will find this short piece by Jonathan Jones worth a read. From the Guardian:

Caravaggio is one of my favourite artists. But, strangely enough, I've never given much thought to his relationship with photography – until now. Writing captions for the Guardian's series of supplements about 100 years of great photojournalism, I've been amazed by how closely some of these photographs resemble paintings by the baroque master Michelangelo Merisi, more commonly called Caravaggio, whose life straddles the late 16th century and the start of the 17th. Again and again, whether it's in Cartier-Bresson's immediacy or Bill Brandt's sepulchral shadows, you catch hints of Caravaggio's intensely lit and passionately sensual world in the work of the most brilliant photographers.

Of course this is no coincidence. Caravaggio was rediscovered because of the camera. It was the spontaneity and directness of the photographed image, both in still prints and movies, that made people recognise the greatness of his art again.