Caravaggio

The DOCENT runs a city art gallery, including a virtual gallery in which he's able to display all the great works of art. His obsession is with Caravaggio, and a life sized bronze of the great 17th century painter dominates this gallery. His declamations on Caravaggio - his life, his works, his "difficulties" - inspire Caravaggio to break out from the bonds of bronze and take issue with the DOCENT. Though the DOCENT is initially unaware of this exchange, it becomes the vehicle through which we are able to re-enact Caravaggio's life and return to the 17th century where, among many others, Galileo cautions him to take more seriously the deadly forces that are working against him, not least of which is his own belligerent personality fired up by passion, a hatred of authority and the lead in his paint. The cardinals and wealthy aristocracy - the Borgheses, the Medici - vie for his paintings, while the Pope and the Inquisition, goaded by jealous rivals in the art world and encouraged by Caravaggio's own self-destructive personality seek to eliminate his corrosive influence. His situation is not improved by the larger political realities: the Pope and the Jesuits are aligned with Spain while the "progressive" forces of France, which Caravaggio, with his instinctive hatred for censorship naturally embraces, are regarded by Rome as suspect and ultimately heretical. Caravaggio's depiction of Virgins as sensual, voluptuous, living women is a particular thorn in the side of authority, especially as he uses his own stable of courtesans, women the aristocracy recognize as their own casual favorite hookers, as models. Caravaggio, being his own worst enemy, inevitably kills a rival in a dual and has to flee Rome with a price (no questions asked) literally on his head. He produces his most famous paintings of beheadings during this period. Offered sanctuary on Malta, he's made a Knight of the Order, but, being Caravaggio, has an affair with the Grand Knight's favorite pageboy, is thrown in jail, an "escape" is engineered, he is followed to Porto Ercole by the Grand Knight's henchmen and assasinated. Meanwhile, back at the city gallery the DOCENT's imagination has allowed the statue's transformation to become reality and they are able to communicate, the DOCENT sympathizing with Caravaggio's weaknesses, his challenges, sharing with him some virtual examples of his influence on those who came after him as great artists and ultimately nursing him to forgiveness and an easeful death. Work in progress. johnholland4@gmail.com