Caravaggio

Michelangelo Merisi da Caravaggio trained as a painter in Milan before moving to Rome in his twenties, where he built a reputation through close physical observation and a dramatic use of light and shadow — tenebrism — that transfixed subjects in bright shafts against darkening voids. He worked rapidly with live models, painting directly onto canvas without drawings, often depicting violent struggle, torture, and death. His technique became a dominant stylistic element that shaped Baroque painting and influenced Rubens, Ribera, Bernini, Velázquez, and Rembrandt. In 1606 he killed Ranuccio Tomm…