Bulletin du Musée National de Varsovie (37.1996)

Caravaggism, which originated in Rome during the master’s lifetime, was
initiated by artists who in some cases were older than Caravaggio by
a generation, yet who adopted his new language of painting as well as his
themes. Orazio Gentileschi and Antiveduto Gramatica were among these elder
followers. The Italian room displayed paintings by both of these artists, Judith
with the Head of Holofernes by Gentileschi (Vatican Pinacoteca) and the
Madonna with the Holy Child and St. Anne by Gramatica (National Museum,
Warsaw). The paintings in the Italian room represented various tendencies of
the Caravaggionist school in Italy, from the dramatically and brutally expressive
Suffering of St. Sebastian Cecco de Caravaggio, to the gentle lyricism and
intense blue of St. Paul the Hermit by Carlo Dolce, or the decorative, free, and
colourful Carnival Scene by Niccolo Renieri.

Spanish Caravaggism, strongly linked to the national tradition of tenebrism
characterised by dramatic expression and emphatic modelling, was represented

at the exhibition by such masters as the Naples resident Jose de Ribera (St. John
the Baptist in the Desert, National Museum, Poznan), Francisco de Zubaran of
Seville (Christ at the Column, National Museum, Wroclaw), and Antonio da
Pereda of the Madrid circle (St. Jerome, National Museum, Warsaw). Next to
such ascetic and monumental renderings of the saints, the painting by the
Neapolitan Bernardo Cavallino, The Dream of St. Joseph, resounded with
a different lyrical note, with more subtle, lively, and refined colours and
a gentle mood. Trophim Bigot’s St. Sebastian Tended by Irene (Vatican
Pinacoteca) was full of gentleness, warmth, quiet, and obscure light.

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