''Rest on the Flight into Egypt'' (c. 1597 creation) is a painting by the
Italian
Italian(s) may refer to:
* Anything of, from, or related to the people of Italy over the centuries
** Italians, an ethnic group or simply a citizen of the Italian Republic or Italian Kingdom
** Italian language, a Romance language
*** Regional Ita ...
Baroque master
Michelangelo Merisi da Caravaggio, in the
Doria Pamphilj Gallery
The Doria Pamphilj Gallery is a large art collection housed in the Palazzo Doria Pamphilj in Rome, Italy, between Via del Corso and Via della Gatta. The principal entrance is on the Via del Corso (until recently, the entrance to the gallery was fr ...
,
Rome
, established_title = Founded
, established_date = 753 BC
, founder = King Romulus (legendary)
, image_map = Map of comune of Rome (metropolitan city of Capital Rome, region Lazio, Italy).svg
, map_caption ...
. The
Rest on the Flight into Egypt
The Rest on the Flight into Egypt is a subject in Christian art showing Mary, Joseph, and the infant Jesus resting during their flight into Egypt. The Holy Family is normally shown in a landscape.
The subject did not develop until the seco ...
, like the
Flight into Egypt, was a popular subject in art, but Caravaggio's composition, with an angel playing the
viol
The viol (), viola da gamba (), or informally gamba, is any one of a family of bowed, fretted, and stringed instruments with hollow wooden bodies and pegboxes where the tension on the strings can be increased or decreased to adjust the pitc ...
to the
Holy Family
The Holy Family consists of the Child Jesus, the Virgin Mary and Saint Joseph. The subject became popular in art from the 1490s on, but veneration of the Holy Family was formally begun in the 17th century by Saint François de Laval, the fir ...
, is unusual.
Subject matter
The scene is based not on any incident in the
Bible
The Bible (from Koine Greek , , 'the books') is a collection of religious texts or scriptures that are held to be sacred in Christianity, Judaism, Samaritanism, and many other religions. The Bible is an anthologya compilation of texts ...
itself, but on a body of tales or legends that had grown up in the early Middle Ages around the Bible story of the
Holy Family
The Holy Family consists of the Child Jesus, the Virgin Mary and Saint Joseph. The subject became popular in art from the 1490s on, but veneration of the Holy Family was formally begun in the 17th century by Saint François de Laval, the fir ...
fleeing into Egypt for refuge on being warned that
Herod the Great
Herod I (; ; grc-gre, ; c. 72 – 4 or 1 BCE), also known as Herod the Great, was a Roman Jewish client king of Judea, referred to as the Herodian kingdom. He is known for his colossal building projects throughout Judea, including his renova ...
was seeking to kill the Christ Child. According to the legend,
Joseph
Joseph is a common male given name, derived from the Hebrew Yosef (יוֹסֵף). "Joseph" is used, along with "Josef", mostly in English, French and partially German languages. This spelling is also found as a variant in the languages of the mo ...
and
Mary
Mary may refer to:
People
* Mary (name), a feminine given name (includes a list of people with the name)
Religious contexts
* New Testament people named Mary, overview article linking to many of those below
* Mary, mother of Jesus, also calle ...
paused on the flight in a grove of trees; the Holy Child ordered the trees to bend down so that Joseph could take fruit from them, and then ordered a spring of water to gush forth from the roots so that his parents could quench their thirst. This basic story acquired many extra details during the centuries.
Caravaggio shows Mary asleep with the infant Jesus, while Joseph holds a manuscript for an angel who is playing a hymn to Mary on the viol.
Date
The date of the painting is disputed. According to Caravaggio's contemporary
Giulio Mancini, this painting and the ''
Penitent Magdalene'', together with an unidentified painting of
Saint John the Evangelist
John the Evangelist ( grc-gre, Ἰωάννης, Iōánnēs; Aramaic: ܝܘܚܢܢ; Ge'ez: ዮሐንስ; ar, يوحنا الإنجيلي, la, Ioannes, he, יוחנן cop, ⲓⲱⲁⲛⲛⲏⲥ or ⲓⲱ̅ⲁ) is the name traditionally given t ...
, was done while Caravaggio was staying with Monsignor
Fantino Petrignani
Fantino is a town in the Sánchez Ramírez province of the Dominican Republic
The Dominican Republic ( ; es, República Dominicana, ) is a country located on the island of Hispaniola in the Greater Antilles archipelago of the Caribbean ...
, shortly after leaving the workshop of
Giuseppe Cesari
Giuseppe Cesari (14 February 1568 – 3 July 1640) was an Italian Mannerist painter, also named Il Giuseppino and called ''Cavaliere d'Arpino'', because he was created ''Cavaliere di Cristo'' by his patron Pope Clement VIII. He was much patronize ...
. This probably happened in January 1594.
However, there are problems with accepting Mancini's statement. To begin, none of these three works were listed in Petragnani's inventory of 1600, although it is possible that they could have been painted for another patron. More seriously, the painting has an obvious and direct compositional source in
Annibale Carracci's ''Judgement of Hercules'', which was completed early in 1596 and widely admired: the pose of Caravaggio's angel, for example, is closely based on that of Carracci's figure of Vice.
While John Gash (2003) accepts Mancini's testimony, others, including
Peter Robb and
Helen Langdon (both 1998), have raised the possibility that it was painted for Cardinal
Francesco Maria Del Monte
Francesco Maria del Monte, full name Francesco Maria Bourbon del Monte Santa Maria, (5 July 1549 – 27 August 1627) was an Italian Cardinal, diplomat, and connoisseur of the arts. His fame today rests on his early patronage of the important Bar ...
, who made Caravaggio in effect his household artist from about 1595 or 1596. The sophisticated treatment is appropriate for the cardinal's intellectual tastes and interests (the music held by Joseph is a motet by the Flemish composer
Noel Bauldeweyn, with a text from the
Song of Songs dedicated to the Madonna, ''Quam pulchra es'', "How beautiful you are"), and it is unlikely that the artist would embark on a work like this other than as a direct commission.
Style
This was the first large-scale work done by Caravaggio, and is compositionally more ambitious and more successful than ''
The Musicians'', of about 1595. It is also one of the very rare landscapes from this artist who seems always to have been painting in a prison cell, a room at a tavern, or at night – one critic has joked that all the sky in all Caravaggio's 80-odd works would add up to a few square centimeters of paint. The painting was apparently sold to the
Pamphilj by the early 17th century. Caravaggio's
Lombard and
Venetian heritage are evident in the treatment of the landscape and in the luminous tonalities. Like most depictions of the flight to Egypt this is a peaceful moment, one in which the scenery is to be enjoyed, more gardenscape than landscape. The luminous figure of the adolescent angel, at once serene and sensuous, holds the centre of the group. The mother and child grouping, one of many that Caravaggio would paint, is comparable in its delicacy and realism to the best that the thousands in the canon can offer.
Models
One of the great pastimes of Caravaggio scholars is identifying his models. Much progress has been made, but the following should be regarded as tentative only, as Caravaggio left few clues. Mary appears to be the same girl who appears as Mary Magdalen in the ''
Penitent Magdalene'' of about 1597, also in the Doria-Pamphilj Gallery. The aged Joseph appears similar to the elderly saints in ''
The Inspiration of Saint Matthew
''The Inspiration of Saint Matthew'' (1602) is a painting by the Italy, Italian Baroque master Caravaggio, Michelangelo Merisi da Caravaggio. Commissioned by the French Cardinal Matteo Contarelli, the canvas hangs in Contarelli chapel altar in t ...
'' of 1602 and, less clearly, ''
Saint Jerome in Meditation'' of about 1605. Some critics have identified the boy-angel with the ingenuous victim of cheats on the left of ''
Cardsharps
A card sharp (also cardsharp, card shark or cardshark, sometimes hyphenated) is a person who uses skill and/or deception to win at poker or other card games. "Sharp" and "shark" spellings have varied over time and by region.
The label is no ...
'', while others have seen a similarity with the profile of the boy cheating him instead.
See also
*
List of paintings by Caravaggio
The following is a list of paintings by the Italian artist Caravaggio, listed chronologically.Spike, John T. ''Caravaggio''. New York : Abbeville Press, 2001: p. 253–54
List of paintings
Footnotes
Further reading
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References and sources
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External links
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{{DEFAULTSORT:Rest On The Flight Into Egypt (Caravaggio)
1590s paintings
Paintings by Caravaggio
Collections of the Doria Pamphilj Gallery
Caravaggio
Angels in art
Musical instruments in art