Tenebrism.

Caravaggio rocks.

I don't normally post on random blogs like this, but that just needed to be said.

It makes me smile that someone recognized him.

He rocks even more if you understand him.

Especially if you understand this work, and you feel as he felt.

It's all about a personal connection.

It's all about a personal connection.

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Something I’ve admittedly never had with Caravaggio. I’ve always mainly admired him for his painting techniques and messages that he seemed to convey in his works, but I never really connected with them on an intimate level, and never hugely empathized with his life history. I understand what you’re saying though, as I do feel that kind of close connection with another artist, Samuel Palmer.

I am nothing like Caravaggio, if we consider his villian persona. I generally enjoy villians, both real life and fictional ones.

The Caravaggio, when he painted this... I am more like him.

His paintings... are so genuine in feeling. This painting, in particular, has always been my favorite of his. The meaning speaks to me and it is a very intimate sort of connection I don't make with a lot of works.

I've actually never heard of the painter you mentioned. Then again, that period of history is -always- fuzzy in my mind. Is there a specific work you relate to?

I generally enjoy villians, both real life and fictional ones.

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Now here, I can relate completely.

I also agree about most of his paintings being very genuine in feeling, even if I don?t really connect with them on the same level. The painting you?ve put up here is most likely the one that appeals to me the most out of all his work, actually. A lot of the others come across as more abstract and somehow detached to me, but with this one I could actually feel it affecting me emotionally, if not to a very strong degree then at least to a moderate one. It?s a work that I find hard to take my eyes off once they find it.

As for Samuel Palmer, I relate to him and his works in a way that I?ve never been able to do with any other artist. I?m not surprised that you?ve never heard of him, though -- he?s most likely one of the least popular/well known of the best British Romantic landscape painters. I actually wouldn?t have known of him myself if not for one of his paintings catching my eye while I was idly flicking through the pages of my teacher?s art book a few years ago, and it was like a hand literally sprouted out of the page and grabbed my head, forcing me to stop and focus on that specific painting -- I don?t think I knew the real meaning of the word ?arresting? until that moment. It was this one, although it loses a lot of its effect in a small and low quality ?net image. After that I found more of his work that resonated, like this, this, this, and this. There are plenty of others, but many of the really good ones can?t be found on the internet -- only seen in a gallery or printed in books that revolve around him. As for why these works say something to me while many other people simply shrug at them?maybe it?s the mixture of the ecstatic celebration of nature, the somehow attractive melancholia that laces a few of them, and the intimate primitivism, or maybe I just can?t put my finger on the exact reason at all and I'm talking trash. It?s something difficult to put into words, I guess. In a sense I feel like maybe it shouldn?t even be put into words, because it might lose something essential in the process of translation from a fluid feeling to becoming solidified text.

Okay, now I?m just rambling.

It?s something difficult to put into words, I guess. In a sense I feel like maybe it shouldn?t even be put into words, because it might lose something essential in the process of translation from a fluid feeling to becoming solidified text.

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This! THIS is it. I could write about why this painting means so much to me, but to... write it in text would not only make the meaning impersonal. [Since the meaning is incredibly private, and at this point is tied up in the core of who I am or who I want to be.] To explain the meaning without my voice though, which is painfully expressive when it comes to this subject, would be nothing but a let down.

It's passionate and it is a feeling to wraps around me until I feel like I can't move and can't breathe, but I don't know what I would do without that feeling and I would never want it to leave.

Even then, those words don't do it justice.

Okay, now I?m just rambling.

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I do it too. No worries.

I still enjoy someone else's rambling though.

It's where all the good stuff comes out.