Collection: Caravaggism

Caravaggism was the international following that Caravaggio's painting generated in the first three decades of the seventeenth century. After his violent flight from Rome in 1606 and his death four years later, the radical chiaroscuro and unidealised figures of his Roman altarpieces had already been absorbed by a generation of younger painters who carried the manner across Italy, Spain, the Low Countries, and France.

The Utrecht Caravaggisti, including Hendrick ter Brugghen, Gerrit van Honthorst, and Dirck van Baburen, brought the idiom back to the Dutch Republic after Roman training, where it later influenced the young Rembrandt van Rijn. In Naples, Caravaggio's example shaped Battistello Caracciolo, Massimo Stanzione, and Jusepe de Ribera. In Spain, the early Diego Velázquez and Francisco de Zurbarán worked the same vocabulary into a distinct local register. The French branch ran through Simon Vouet, Valentin de Boulogne, and Georges de La Tour. The Roman circle around Bartolomeo Manfredi, Orazio Gentileschi, and Artemisia Gentileschi extended the manner across the 1610s and 1620s.