Hello! If you’re a first time visitor to Caravaggista, you may want to explore the following links.

Origins
This page tells the story behind Caravaggista.com and what the goals of the site are.

What is Art History?
For those of you who wonder what art history is and how art historians do what they do.

Why Choose Art History?
This was written with several types of readers in mind:
- prospective college students unsure of if it’s wise to be an art history major
- current art history students who want a validation of their choice of study
- anyone who wants to know what they can do with a degree in art history

For Undergraduates (via the Caravaggista Tumblr)
A resource page of questions I’ve answered from undergraduates. Why should you study art history? What are your career options? What do you do when you doubt your academic choices? How do you apply to grad school — or even start thinking about it? All of these questions & more are answered.

Tumblr
While Caravaggista.com may sometimes update sporadically during the academic year, the Caravaggista Tumblr posts daily with art from across the centuries and it covers a wide range of interdisciplinary topics.

Shorts
This section of the site takes its name from UCLA’s Shorttakes Film Festival. I grew up going to it and remember its movies fondly as a source of inspiration. The writings in this section are short musings about various art historical topics.

FAQs

Caravaggio Entries:

Caravaggio’s Bodies & Shadows at LACMA
This is an overview of LACMA’s recent Caravaggio exhibition, Bodies & Shadows: Caravaggio and his Legacy, which ran from November 11, 2012 – February 10, 2013.

Skepticism Surrounding Caravaggio Discovery
This post summarizes the July 2011 “discovery” of 100 Caravaggio sketches dating to when he was in Simone Peterzano’s workshop in Milan as a teen. (Note: this hasn’t been updated to reflect the police inquiry into the researchers’ access to the archives)

Caravaggio the Leader
This article is one of my favorite things to appear on this site thus far. It asks the question of whether or not Caravaggio was the leader of an artistic movement. He founded no academy and had no pupils, and yet his style became internationally popular. What can be said for Caravaggio’s role (direct or indirect) in this?

Leaving Art to the Professionals (?)
This entry discusses portions of Peter Robb’s biography of Caravaggio, “M: The Man who Became Caravaggio,” and an interview he gave about Caravaggio. Is the interpretation and appreciation of art  too tightly controlled in the hands of academics? Are art historians too focused on writing for each other?

It’s Hard Not to Love Caravaggio
You’ll have to read this to find out why.

Happy 440th Birthday, Caravaggio!
Caravaggio is often discussed on this site, and this article gives a brief overview of his life, art, and contemporary as well as modern perceptions of him.

Miscellaneous

The Rosary Project (via the Caravaggista Tumblr)
I am interested in the ways the rosary was represented in art and prints during the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries. I’ve begun compiling images for this project on Tumblr.

Facebook Community
“Like” Caravaggista.com on Facebook to get art and art history-related posts in your Newsfeed and talk about art with fellow art lovers!