Any Woman?

Part of Caravaggio’s genius/madness, besides his technical mastery, was in the daring narrative and symbolic aspects of his paintings. And there was nothing he preferred more than to present the divine with very human attributes.

For example, both these masterpieces were reviled when they were unveiled because he dared suggest that the Madonna was simply a woman, “Any woman!” accused his critics.

His Madonna di Loreto in Sant’Agostino in Rome shows a public Madonna leaning not against the usual ornate classical trellis of marble columns ringed with floating cupids, but against a decrepit wall, almost hesitant to show her newborn child to the adoring pilgrims who see her in vision. Halo? Barely there. Clothing? Humble. Barefoot too!

Caravaggio’s other famous Madonna, (dei Palafrenieri) at the Galleria Borghese, depicts her with her mother in an intimate family setting, teaching her son not to be afraid of a snake (evil). And here too she has a flimsy halo, a normal (and far too revealing) dress, and is barefoot (again!)

However, Caravaggio never left anything to chance and takes every opportunity to drive his point home. How so?

Look closely… the model who stood for the Madonna in the two paintings was the same person.