Touch up job

by Andrew Whittaker
October 9th, 2009

If you happen to pass through the lower house of the Italian Parliament in the next few weeks (you never know, you might), you’ll meet the small team of restorers charged with retouching Caravaggio’s Adoration of the Shepherds (1609). It’s a delicate masterpiece, sketchy around the edges but with the painter’s characteristic use of chiaroscuro (light and shade) and ‘real’ human faces in the central scene of Mary and the shepherds.

The Italian Government is restoring the painting on public display in Parliament (it usually lives in a museum in Sicily) ready for an unveiling in the Presidential Palace in Rome, February 2010, to coincide with the 400th anniversary of Caravaggio’s death. Or so they say. I suspect, instead, that they’re trying to cash in on the release of Speak the Culture: Italy (published next month).

When Caravaggio was at work, the realism that he brought to biblical figures – a real warts ’n’ all approach – was shocking. The Church preferred a more idealised beauty in their paintings, tastes that echo down the years: perhaps the restorers will soften the shepherds’ lines or airbrush the donkey’s cellulite in line with modern tastes.

Famously, Caravaggio lived a wild life, spending his later years on the run after murdering a tennis opponent. However, his death, aged 38, was a mundane affair, brought on by a bout of typhus in Tuscany. Although celebrated during his own lifetime, Caravaggio’s work was all but forgotten for 300 years after his death.