Caravaggio is hotter than Michelangelo

Spicezee Bureau

Rome: Modern audiences identify more with painter Caravaggio than Michelangelo, according to a study by Philip Sohm, an eminent art historian. Although the painter was depraved, scandalous and murderous, his paintings are honest in its depiction of reality. While Renaissance painter Michelangelo’s works are highly imaginative with deep religious over-tones. Michelangelo’s works are less germane, something to be revered while Caravaggio’s works are unabashedly blatant, almost brutally realistic, that’s why it’s more endearing to the modern man. Caravaggio is the hyperrealist whose art exemplifies the modern antihero and is instantly accessible while Michelangelo’s works are fit only for a pedestal. The historian has drawn the conclusion after studying a number of writings (books, catalogs and scholarly papers) on both of them during the last 50 years. Mr Sohm has found that Caravaggio has gradually overtaken Michelangelo. Mr Sohm announced his findings during a talk at the College Art Association conference in Chicago. He has said that the term ‘Caravaggiomania’ implies not just that art history doctoral students may be struggling to think up anything fresh to say about Michelangelo but the fact that the painter is becoming even more foreign and less relevant to the modern times. Michelangelo Merisi da Caravaggio, (29 September 1571 – 18 July 1610) was an Italian artist active in Rome, Naples, Malta and Sicily between 1593 and 1610.