Utrecht Caravaggism

Utrecht Caravaggism names the work of Dutch painters who absorbed Caravaggio's revolution in Rome in the 1610s and brought it home to Utrecht around 1620. Hendrick ter Brugghen, Gerrit van Honthorst, and Dirck van Baburen had painted in the Eternal City at the height of Caravaggio's fame; returning to the Dutch Republic, they worked in his manner - hard light, deep shadow, and coarse contemporary models standing in for saints and gods - and in turn influenced artists across the Netherlands and in Flanders. Honthorst's candlelit night scenes earned him the nickname 'Gherardo delle Notti', and the group's history and genre scenes fed a taste for theatrical realism. The current was short-lived: after 1630 the painters moved on and Utrecht Caravaggism petered out.

Defining characteristics

• Caravaggesque tenebrism: figures cut from darkness by raking, directed light
• Candlelit night scenes with warm glow and long shadows (Honthorst's specialty)
• Biblical and mythological figures modeled on ordinary, even coarse, contemporary types
• Half-length figures pushed close to the picture plane, often cropped by the frame
• History and genre scenes rendered in sober Dutch realism

Key figures

• Hendrick ter Brugghen (1588-1629) — The most individual Utrecht Caravaggist, master of muted color and dramatic light
• Gerrit van Honthorst (1592-1656) — Master of candlelit night scenes, known in Rome as 'Gherardo delle Notti'
• Dirck van Baburen (c. 1595-1624) — Forceful history painter whose Procuress hung in Vermeer's mother-in-law's household
• Jan van Bijlert (1597-1671) — Utrecht painter who carried the style toward a gentler classicism

Example works

• The Procuress (The Matchmaker) — Gerrit van Honthorst (1625)
• The Procuress — Dirck van Baburen (1622)
• Bacchante with an Ape — Hendrick ter Brugghen (1627)

Sources

• Utrecht Caravaggism - Wikipedia encyclopedia

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