Saint Catherine of Alexandria
Stories behind the Works of Art
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Who is the model in Saint Catherine by Caravaggio?
Saint Catherine of Alexandria (1598/99). Caravaggio.
One virtue of Caravaggio’s was the power to give a new humanity to the human figure. What do we mean? The artist stopped painting in an idealized way and made the characters more real. This was more notorious when he portrayed religious characters, which so far had been depicted with traits and gestures of sanctity. Caravaggio portrayed them instead in a definitely “earthly” way.
Something we find fascinating about Caravaggio is that he “searched for beauty not only in beautiful things.” Because reality is beautiful, even if it is not ideal.
The artist’s great idea was to use peasants, people from the lower classes, rather rustic people, to represent venerable, saintly figures.
And one of the most exquisite examples of this is his Saint Catherine of Alexandria. The model was Fillide Melandroni, a renowned prostitute from the city of Siena. The story goes that when, years later, Caravaggio had to go into exile for killing a man in a fight, that man was Fillide’s pimp.
The strength of this work and the energy it radiates are born like the strength and energy of the Baroque: from contrast, from the clash between opposites. And in this case, that clash is between the saint and the woman of unholy life.
The Baroque, which was emerging at the time this work was created, is a period of violent contrasts: light and darkness, life and death, Heaven and Earth, materialism and idealism, reason and the senses.
Caravaggio painted the saint from her earthly model (which is also her model in the work Judith Beheading Holofernes) and “played” with another contrast: on the one hand, he places the halo of a saint; but on the other hand, instead of representing her with the gesture of being in a mystical trance, or of horror before the imminent torture, he shows Catherine with the serenity and gentleness of an innocent girl.
Recommended links:
The Incredulity of Saint Thomas, Caravaggio.
Characteristic Elements of Baroque Painting.
Artistic Movements I: from Classical Antiquity to Rococo.
Rembrandt, Synonym of Chiaroscuro and Baroque.
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