Caravaggio At the Mint Museum In Charlotte

Caravaggio at the Mint Museum In Charolotte For those who don't know Caravaggio was one of the most talented and famous Renaissance painters even in his own time. He died in 1610 at the age of 38 (as far as anyone knows) and he's also considered the man who changed art. Creating mostly religious art was what most painters made a living doing at that time. Caravaggio thumbed his nose at the bright colors and cloudlike representation of Biblical events most painters of the time used to represent heavenly events. Caravaggio's paintings were usually dark, bleak and realistic to the point of being disturbing. "Death of the Virgin", which was commissioned by the local Carmelite Nuns, portrays several saints carrying the body of the Virgin Mary. It was so disturbing that the Nuns gave it back to him. The painting portrayed several Saints carrying Mary's body after her death, supposedly to be buried. The saints are all obviously in severe distress but the most disturbing part of the painting is that the body of Mary is obviously dead, very unlike the joyful paintings depicting the Virgin. It also didn't help that it was rumored that the model he used for the painting was a dead prostitutes' body he had purchased from the local morgue. Caravaggio, whose real name was Michelangelo Merisi was pretty much crazy. He got into fist fights with his competitors, was sentenced to house arrest for assaulting a waiter over a plate of vegetables and ultimately got into a duel with a noble who was also a pimp. Caravaggio ended up killing his opponent by playing dirty. His sword pierced his dueling partner's femoral artery. Aparently Caravaggio was trying to castrate the man but ended up making him bleed to death. Dueling at the time was a death penalty offense and Caravaggio ended up in an "escape proof" dungeon. Having lived a somewhat Caravaggio life myself, I was thrilled to discover that the Mint Museum in Charlotte was hosting a Caravaggio exhibit. It took me several weeks to get it together enough to drive from the Piedmont to Charlotte and I finally embarked on the journey last Saturday morning. Since the museum didn't open till eleven I thought I'd take a leisurely route to Charlotte but for some reason my GPS program took me to just outside of the south of Charlotte. I reprogrammed the GPS to take me to the Mint Museum which wasn't that far away from where I had landed and I arrived at one the most beautiful grounds and stunning building I've ever seen. It was very much like a fantasy and the building was huge. I walked in and said "I'm here to see the Caravaggio exhibit and was told "That's at the OTHER Mint Museum". I had no idea there were two of them and was a bit shocked at the news. I was told the Caravaggio exhibit was at the downtown branch. So, I got the address of the "other" Mint museum and continued my journey. I wasn't terribly far away and I arrived in about ten minutes. Incredibly I found a parking space about a block away. Having not visited downtown Charlotte in well over ten years, I was taken aback by the massive height of and unusual shape of many of the skyscrapers that had obviously sprung up since my last visit decades in the past. It cast a sort of eerie, haunting shadow on the pavement even in bright daylight. I made my way to what was one of those megaliths which was the Mint Museum. It is HUGE. I took an elevator to the box office and when I told the lady I'd come from the Piedmont are to see a Caravaggio exhibit she told me "Well we only have ONE Caravaggio painting". My heart sank. But I did manage to get in free thanks to my clumsiness when my VA ID spilled out my wallet and was told "you don't have to pay". Somewhat disheartened I accepted my ticket to the exhibit and proceeded to the third and highest floor. Despite my initial disappointment I was taken aback at the size of the building. Each floor had a different show and every one was worth seeing. When I got to the top floor where the ultimate prize of an original Caravaggio I found the piece was "Boy Bitten by A Lizard", a painting I'd seen many times in art books and online. It was fabulously presented with much fanfare and history about the art and artist. Beyond that the entire area was filled with many other painters of the era, all extraordinary items in themselves and for some bizarre reason there were a few near pornograhpic large "art" photos that added nothing to the exhibit. I guess the curators wanted to show how "modern" and "with it" they were. Photographs of this type beside painting from the 1600 hundreds is just a stupid idea that can only come from the warped mind of the over educated mind of the elite. After spending way to much time haunting the downtown Mint Museum I finally exited the front doors to discover there is a super high end restaurant attached to the museum, something I could never afford but was obviously a fabulous place. Just outside the restaurant is a sort of open air balcony and pretty steep steps that themselves are a sort of art. Walking down carefully and reaching the street I was once again stricken by the enormity of the buildings and the strangely angled shadows each one cast onto the street. There weren't many people around so I'm guessing people of the area don't really view downtown as destination recreation area or a place to gather. Since I didn't hang around until dark, I may be wrong about that assumption. I left the area and once again got lost even with the guidance of my "trusty" GPS program, but finally did find myself on the interstate heading home. When I at last exited the highway, after getting near to home base, I treated myself a Chick-Fil-A sandwich, which to me is genuine art Americana.