Learning
Recently I was very fortunate to catch an exhibition of paintings by my favourite artist – Caravaggio. While it contained works on loan from collections around the world, one painting in particular caught my attention: the Conversion of Saint Paul.
In the church of Santa Maria del Popolo in Rome, there is always a steady flow of visitors who come in to see two Caravaggio paintings, one of which is the Conversion of Saint Paul, painted around 1601. It’s a masterful piece – simple and striking, it catches the moment St Paul falls to the ground and has his road-to-Damascus moment.
But that’s not the painting in the Caravaggio exhibition. The one on display in the exhibition is his first attempt at it a year earlier. We don’t get to see it very often because it’s in private ownership.
This first version was rejected by the church, which was a pretty hard blow to Caravaggio’s ego at the time. It was a big commission and he’d put a huge effort into it. In fact, he threw everything into it. There’s St Paul on the ground being blinded, with an angel flying in from the top carrying Jesus to help him out. There’s also a horse and a well-armed servant, a fair bit of foliage and a sunset. You can see that this was meant to be the epic boots-and-all effort with nothing left out. It’s spectacular.
And you can also see that that’s the problem the church had with it. It’s congested, it’s messy, it’s complicated. There’s too much going on and the eye doesn’t know where to look next. Is the servant really trying to protect St Paul from Jesus? Is the horse trying to nibble on the angel’s wing? Too much.
And so this glorious mess shows us clearly what happened next. After Caravaggio suffered this high profile rejection, survived the taunting from his competitors, stopped punching the wall and swearing, he went back to first principles and created the simple and beautiful version that still hangs today in the church.
As I walked away from the exhibition I felt uplifted. When we can see for ourselves a great artist-hero failing, falling, regrouping, learning and improving, then there’s hope for all of us.
Learning
Recently I was very fortunate to catch an exhibition of paintings by my favourite artist – Caravaggio. While it contained works on loan from collections around the world, one painting in particular caught my attention: the Conversion of Saint Paul.
In the church of Santa Maria del Popolo in Rome, there is always a steady flow of visitors who come in to see two Caravaggio paintings, one of which is the Conversion of Saint Paul, painted around 1601. It’s a masterful piece – simple and striking, it catches the moment St Paul falls to the ground and has his road-to-Damascus moment.
But that’s not the painting in the Caravaggio exhibition. The one on display in the exhibition is his first attempt at it a year earlier. We don’t get to see it very often because it’s in private ownership.
This first version was rejected by the church, which was a pretty hard blow to Caravaggio’s ego at the time. It was a big commission and he’d put a huge effort into it. In fact, he threw everything into it. There’s St Paul on the ground being blinded, with an angel flying in from the top carrying Jesus to help him out. There’s also a horse and a well-armed servant, a fair bit of foliage and a sunset. You can see that this was meant to be the epic boots-and-all effort with nothing left out. It’s spectacular.
And you can also see that that’s the problem the church had with it. It’s congested, it’s messy, it’s complicated. There’s too much going on and the eye doesn’t know where to look next. Is the servant really trying to protect St Paul from Jesus? Is the horse trying to nibble on the angel’s wing? Too much.
And so this glorious mess shows us clearly what happened next. After Caravaggio suffered this high profile rejection, survived the taunting from his competitors, stopped punching the wall and swearing, he went back to first principles and created the simple and beautiful version that still hangs today in the church.
As I walked away from the exhibition I felt uplifted. When we can see for ourselves a great artist-hero failing, falling, regrouping, learning and improving, then there’s hope for all of us.