During the winter 2018/2019, it was all about Caravaggisti in Utrecht - a group of painters from Utrecht and elsewhere who traveled to Rome and there underwent the influence of the art of Caravaggio. Michelangelo Merisi da Caravaggio (called Caravaggio) was a staggering painter under more than one aspect. He and his successors Bartolomeo Manfredi and Jusepe de Ribera, called Lo Spagnoletto, influenced many painters in Italy who adapted Caravaggio's style and developed it further. Three of these young painters from Utrecht in Rome were Hendrick ter Brugghen, Dirck van Baburen and Gerard (Gerrit) van Honthorst.
After these three artists returned to Utrecht, this city and the Netherlands, too, got to know the often dramatic chiaroscuro painting of Caravaggio and his surroundings. The style that now is called caravaggism even had its impact on artists who never traveled to Rome and Italy, like Abraham Bloemaert and Rembrandt van Rijn.
Until March 24th, 2019, the Centraal Museum in Utrecht presented an important special exhibition on painting of the caravaggisti in Europe and Utrecht - a welcome occasion for Kukullus to offer a guided city walk in Utrecht as a supplement to this show.
The world of the Caravaggisti in Utrecht – a guided city tour
This guided city walk through Utrecht brings you closer to the world of the Utrecht Caravaggist painters. What characterized Utrecht in this period? Where did the three painters Hendrick ter Brugghen (also spelled Terbrugghen), Dirck van Baburen (or Babueren) and Gerrit van Honthorst live, where could we have found their former teachers Abraham Bloemaert and Paulus Moreelse, who had taught them the basis of their profession? Who were these Caravaggisti, anyway? And how should we imagine Utrecht during the first decades of the 17th century?
Book a guided city tour in the footsteps of the Utrecht Caravaggist painters and the world they lived in in Utrecht and stroll along the places in the city that were of importance for this groundbreaking group of artists.
For prices and group sizes of guided city walks in Utrecht see here.
Reserve a date and book your tour through the contact form here.
View of Utrecht with the Buurkerk and the cathedral. Here in the centre of Utrecht, the caravaggisti lived and worked after they had returned from Rome, among them the most important painters of them Dirck van Baburen, Gerard van Honthorst and Hendrick ter Brugghen.
This drawing by the Utrecht scholar Arnoldus Buchelius (Arnout van Buchel) from his 'Diarium'shows what Utrecht looked like around 1593-1600 (view from the west).
