Girish Shahane traces Michelangelo Caravaggio’s rise to prominence as the most influential artist of his day, the violent disposition that shadowed his life, the decline in his reputation in the centuries following his death, and the dramatic rebound in his popularity in recent decades. He discusses the split in Christianity that led to the rise of the Baroque style, and the rivals and imitators of Caravaggio who worked in that form. The artist’s depictions of boys, men and women provide a take-off point for an account of gay subcultures and women’s rights in seventeenth-century Rome. Pointing to citations of Caravaggio in video and film, Shahane suggests these have proliferated because Caravaggio speaks to us in a voice very different from those of his peers and predecessors, one that makes his paintings feel particularly relevant to our time.

Girish Shahane is an independent writer and curator based in Mumbai. He has degrees in English literature from Elphinstone College, Bombay University, and Oxford University, which he attended as a Rhodes Scholar. He was the editor and later the consulting editor of Art India magazine. He has written columns for Time Out magazine, Scroll, and Mint Lounge. He has been Director of the Skoda Prize for Indian Contemporary Art, Artistic Director of Art Chennai, and Artistic Director of the India Art Fair. Recent exhibitions curated by him include A Bold Step Sideways (Delhi, August 2024), Solitary Companions: The Art of Naina Dalal (Delhi, September 2024), and Gaitonde / Souza (Mumbai, November 2024).