I’m enjoying immensely reading the new biography of Caravaggio, by Andrew Graham-Dixon. (A Christmas present from my wife.) He seems have far deeper insight into Caravaggio’s paintings than does Helen Langdon, whose biography I read several years ago. Graham-Dixon sees far more intellectual and spiritual depth in Caravaggio’s work than Langdon does, although she takes a greater interest in his artistic context.
I have to say it can be terribly dispiriting looking at pictures like his. He just seems to have everything you could possibly expect from an artist. That’s the dreadful think about being an artist–you find yourself making comparisons between your own work and that of the giants of art. If I were a bus-driver or a clerk I wouldn’t feel overshadowed by people who had done these jobs particularly well. Being a painter is even worse in this respect than my previous academic employment, when I was aware of the great founders of the discipline but was never quite intimidated by their achievements.