Long Shadow

Early in the xyth century, a Roman nobleman commissioned three famed artists of the day to paint their versions of Ecce Homo (Pilate presenting Christ to the mob). He bought the one that pleased him best, by Lodovico Cigoli, and eventually it passed to the Pitti Palace at Florence. Another version, by Domenico Passignano, is lost. The third, by the great Michelangelo Merisi da Caravaggio, also disappeared.

In the centuries that followed, the fate of Caravaggio's painting has often tantalized art historians. It was not until Genoa's directress of fine arts began to get curious about a neglected painting which had long been dismissed as merely a copy of the master's work that the mystery was finally solved. Cleaned and restored to its original brilliance, and authenticated by Italy's ranking experts on the period, Caravaggio's Ecce Homo went on public view last week in Genoa's Palazzo Bianco.

Around the Corner. The Genoa showing added new fuel to the revival of interest in Caravaggio, which has been growing steadily ever since Milan staged a Caravaggio retrospective three years ago. In recent months Critic Bernard Berenson has published an appraisal of Caravaggio's work, and British Critic Roger Hinks has added a critical biography of one of the world's most spectacular artistic adventurers.

According to Biographer Hinks, Caravaggio was a violent genius who cast a mighty long shadow. Born in 1573 in the north Italian town of Caravaggio, he went to Rome at 18 and almost immediately captured the capital by his talent for naturalistic painting, although contemporary academicians tut-tutted his ignorance of Raphaelesque composition and decorum. He worked directly from nature, without preliminary sketches, and painted sacred history as if it had all happened just around the corner.

Caravaggio's career was as brief as it was spectacular. A notorious brawler, he eventually stabbed and killed a crony in a dispute over a tennis score, and had to flee Rome. He found refuge at Malta, where he painted a portrait of the Grand Master and was rewarded with a knighthood. But then he assaulted a fellow knight and was imprisoned. He escaped, made his way to Tuscany, was arrested for a crime he had not committed. Soon afterward, he died of fever. He was then 36.

Into the Future. Had he lived longer, says Hinks, Caravaggio "might even have diverted the whole course of seicento [17th century] painting." Even as it was, he inspired dozens of later masters. Rubens borrowed from his swirling, figure-full compositions; Vermeer took over and refined his trick of illuminating dim interiors with dramatic shafts of light; Rembrandt adapted to deeper use his habit of painting the faces of real people mysteriously veiled in shadow; Georges de La Tour appropriated his favored color scheme (red on black); Velasquez, the realest of realists, gained conviction from Caravaggio's absolute devotion to nature.

To celebrate the rediscovery of Caravaggio's Ecce Homo, Genoa borrowed Cigoli's version from Florence and displayed the two together. Visitors thronging the gallery at the rate of a thousand a day, agreed with Expert Roberto Longhi that Caravaggio's version is one of his "most moving works," and much superior to Cigoli's canvas. Caravaggio had at last won the competition he lost to his rival Cigoli 3 1/2 centuries ago.

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