Caravaggio’s Roman PeriodPériode romaine du Caravage

Caravaggio’s Roman Period, within Paris’s Musee Jacquemart-Andre, focuses on 1592–1606, when Michelangelo Merisi da Caravaggio upended Roman painting with radical naturalism and sharp chiaroscuro. In works such as Judith Beheading Holofernes, saints and sinners share the same unforgiving light, turning biblical violence, repentance, and doubt into scenes of startling human presence. Shown in a former private mansion designed for close viewing, this section traces the Roman breakthrough that helped define the Baroque and reshaped European painting.