Caravaggio

Michelangelo Merisi, known as Caravaggio (1571–1610), was an Italian painter and one of the leading figures of the Baroque period. Born in Lombardy, he developed his career in Rome, where he revolutionized religious painting by depicting sacred figures with a realistic human appearance, using ordinary people as models and strong contrasts between light and shadow. After killing a man in a fight in 1606, he fled Rome and worked in Naples, Malta, and Sicily. His paintings, characterized by naturalism and dramatic intensity, profoundly influenced European art throughout the 17th century.