Utrecht, Caravaggio and Europe

In around 1600, Rome was the center of the art world. Attracted by Caravaggio’s spectacular success, young artists from all over Europe converged on the bustling metropolis to study and discuss his breathtaking and unconventional works, each using his style to develop their own individual pictorial language. Artists from the Dutch tradition were particularly influenced by the Italian master’s dramatic use of lighting and perspective, and carried Caravaggio’s merciless realism to extremes. Featuring more than seventy paintings, this stunning volume traces the careers of the most important Utrecht Caravaggists—from Hendrick ter Brugghen to Gerard van Honthorst and Dirck van Baburen—and illuminates the wider atmosphere of rebellion and renewal in the art world during this time.