THE TURMOIL OF CARAVAGGIO’S ART

‘IT’S amazing how often my soul goes to the National Gallery and how seldom I go myself,’ said essayist Logan Perseall Smith; no stranger, I’m sure, to readers of this column. Of course, many of us are guilty of this. So this year, should you find yourself in London, pop into the National Gallery — it has a Caravaggio exhibition running from April 18 to July 21.

Caravaggio led a violent life — he enjoyed prowling the streets of Rome, sword at hand, looking for victims to engage in an argument or a fight. He ended up in Naples after being on the lam from a murder charge in Rome, so doubtless fitted right in to this city, which had a reputation — and somewhat still has — for lawlessness.

Surprisingly, Caravaggio made it to the ripe old age of 38. In May 1610, he was in Naples working on the last picture he’d ever paint.

Two months later, he died in, predictably enough, mysterious circumstances. But it was during his final tumultuous years in Naples that Caravaggio made some of his most sensational and glorious works.

Few paintings are better placed to tell the story of Caravaggio’s final years than his last-known work, The Martyrdom of Saint Ursula (1610, Gallerie d’Italia, Naples). The painting is going to London for the first time in 20 years. It depicts violence at close quarters, with his own self-portrait looking helplessly on.

The painting is being displayed at the National Gallery with the letter that describes its creation (Archivio di Stato, Naples), and alongside another Caravaggio masterpiece, Salome with the Head of John the Baptist (about 1609–10).

I don’t know if my favourite Caravaggio will be there. It’s called Cardsharps, and recently I decided I had to go and see it for real.

I imagined it would be somewhere in Naples, or maybe even Venice. In a dark, silent gallery, not clogged with tourists.

It would be like the cardsharps would put on a show for me. Then later, I’d pull my coat up round me and step into the swirling mists of St Mark’s Square.

So I checked the painting’s whereabouts. Well! It’s in the Kimbell Art Museum in Fort Worth, Texas, of all places.

Fort Worth promotes itself as ‘the city of cowboys and culture’, so yeehaw, hot diggerty, here I come.

Last-known work: The Martyrdom of Saint Ursula by Caravaggio, circa 1610