The counter-reformation was at its height, and the church was commissioning hundreds of new artworks,
to be used as powerful weapons of propaganda against the Protestant faith.
Religious art had lost its way, and artists were being asked to produce emotionally engaging
and intense works, accessible and realistic enough to inspire the masses. Caravaggio who would rather
spend time in a tavern, than a church understood the masses more than most. He had arrived in Rome
in 1592, young, broke and homeless, having already been in trouble with the authorities in Milan.
Rome was a city where nuns and cardinals rub shoulders with gangs and prostitutes.
And the new arrival would fit right in. It is impossible to separate Caravaggio the criminal
from Caravaggio the painter of sacred images. One could simply not exist without the other.
He inhabited a world where honour was everything, the slightest insult needed to be revenged.
And the hair triggered Caravaggio would be forever on the lookout for trouble.
Caravaggio broke the rules of art as well as his life. He would look at the dark side of the Christian
story and include its more sordid and unpalatable side. Caravaggio's art would represent the world as
it is, and not how it should be. Much to some of the clergy's horror he accentuated the poverty
and common humanity of Christ and his followers, by using ordinary working people as his models.
Some of them considered to be the scum of the city: street workers, prostitutes, beggars and rent boys.
He would scandalise Rome by portraying the Virgin Mary with dirty feet, Saint Peter as a terrified
and bewildered old man. The church had asked for realism and Caravaggio would give it to them.
The strange story of betrayal by a kiss is a subject that has fascinated Italians for centuries.
The subject had been painted by hundreds of artists, but never with such brutal honesty.
It is useful to compare Caravaggio's version of the betrayal with an earlier version by an
equally revolutionary, but very different artist, Giotto. He gives us a more complete
and chaotic picture of the events that will lead to Jesus's crucifixion. Caravaggio ignores the
peripheral characters and pares it right back to the essentials, the emotional core.
We are used to seeing the close-up with cinema and TV - but it was unusual in the 17th century to have
scenes cropped so tight. Giotto's work is taking place on a remote stage, Caravaggio's, just inches from your face.
Giotto has Christ being arrested by an army. Caravaggio's looks more like a street brawl.
Both versions take place at night, as the gospels tell us after the evening meal and prayers.
Caravaggio's night-time however is a world where violence hides in shadows.
There is no background, no architecture or gardens, just darkness. Only the moonlight
off screen lights the scene - from left to right, the preferred direction of light Caravaggio used.
It is almost like a spotlight on Jesus and Judas and suggests divine light.
Although the man at the far side is holding a lantern, it is in reality an ineffective source.
Then the light reflected in the armour, seems to be coming from the viewer's direction.
In Giotto's version, it is obvious we are witnessing a religious event. In Caravaggio's version,
he asks us: "what would it be like if Jesus looked like an ordinary man when he was arrested?"
"How would we know?" Caravaggio emphasises Christ's humanity, rather than his divinity as the lord.
Giotto has a huge crowd, but there are just SEVEN characters in Caravaggio's version.
He limits the mob to four men, but a greater number is implied by how crowded in they are.
If we lighten the picture, we can make out traces of lances, suggesting further soldiers.
The main characters from left to right are John,
Jesus, Judas, a soldier, another soldier, a lamp bearer, and behind him another soldier.
Both versions have him being pulled back by his cloak, referenced in the bible as an unnamed figure.
The identity of the fleeing figure in both versions has been disputed, or mostly just ignored.
There is no definitive answer recorded, but I think Caravaggio AND Giotto intended it to be John the evangelist.
John is the youngest disciple and so he is generally depicted beardless.
Caravaggio has him beardless AND wearing red and green, ` and as we can see these are colours often, but not exclusively
associated with John. In Caravaggio's pared back version, I think John represents ALL the fleeing
apostles, and as John was the most beloved, he would be seen as a counterpoint for Judas the betrayer.
What is interesting, is how John and Jesus have identical hair, and seem to be merging together as one being.
Christ will go away and be crucified, and John will escape and serve as propagator and protector of the faith.
The image suggests that the church, which will be represented by the apostles, emanates directly from Christ himself.
John's cloak is like a halo over Christ.
The red, could symbolise "martyrdom" or the blood of Christ.
Giotto also uses red symbolically.
One of the first things that strikes you about Jesus in both images, is his lack of emotion,
but according to the Bible, Jesus knew Judas would betray him and, THAT - according to Christian tradition,
would bring salvation to humanity. So Jesus's sorrowful reaction is one of resignation rather than shock.
I think in Caravaggio's version, Christ's acceptance is there, but we also see fear of the imminent future.
In Caravaggio's version, Judas is a much more nuanced and human character,
than the villain that Giotto makes him. His face is a powerful study in contradicting emotions,
of love and jealousy, hate and pride. Judas appears haunted by what is to come.
Having just betrayed Jesus, he seems to immediately regret it and grips onto him for dear life,
forcing the soldier to remove his hands. Even in the Gospels themselves, Judas is
never seen with the psychological complexity that Caravaggio shows us.
in most portrayals, Judas either acts under the influence of Satan or out of simple greed.
We see very little of any of the soldiers features, they are faceless as well as ruthless.
The Roman officer's highly polished metal clad arm is placed in the very centre of the canvas.
The harsh black metal serves as a powerful contrast with the vulnerable flesh of the defenceless Christ.
The composition is clearly inspired by a woodcut made 100 years before by Dürer.
It has been suggested that the highly reflective surface of the armour serves as a mirror.
Caravaggio may be holding up a mirror to us the viewer, to remind us that theologically speaking
we are sinners by default. The soldier's arm, along with the swirling drapery of John's cloak forms
"a picture within a picture", emphasising the main story.
Caravaggio has done this before.
This is a self-portrait of Caravaggio. There have been artists who put themselves in their pictures before.
But not with such a "starring role" as a character. Caravaggio does it in several
paintings, most dramatically here, painted at a time when there was a bounty on his head.
In 1602 he was at the height of his fame, and would have been recognisable in the painting.
There are numerous theories as to why he placed himself so prominently in the picture,
but we can't deny a bit of narcissism. The lamp he holds is not strong enough to light the whole scene,
but symbolically, the lamp's light falls on his own right hand the instrument of his genius.
In the same way his counterpart, John's right hand is visible: His writing hand. As the author of the book of Revelations.
Compositionally, Caravaggio makes the parallels of himself and John explicit.
According to counter-reformation thinking, Caravaggio - as a painter of Christian images,
has a purpose in propagating the faith. And it is possible that compositionally, he is
placing himself in the lineage of Christian preaching, that begins with the apostles.
Caravaggio had his own reasons for believing that redemption could come to the most unlikely sinner.
Caravaggio's use of "Tenebrism" or extreme "Chiaroscuro", violent contrasts, required unusual
working practices. He worked in a dark room using high lamps to direct the light.
He was once taken to court for knocking a hole in the ceiling of his apartment to let a shaft of light through.
As we've seen in previous videos, the ground coat has a huge influence on the finished work.
Unlike most artists who use a mid-tone ground Caravaggio used a very dark red brown base.
We can actually make out the dark ground on the edges of the painting, where previously a frame would have been.
We also see it in the shadows and mid-tones in a technique called "A Risparmio". Artists were warned
that painting light tones on dark - the opposite from how most artists work - would muddy the colours.
But Caravaggio used the ground to build up shadows, and show the dramatic contrast of light and shade.
Infrared scans show us that unusually, he did not do preliminary sketches but painted straight onto the canvas,
with minimal preparation. There are no drawings in existence by Caravaggio.
He worked with live studio models, and would plot their positions directly onto the canvas,
marking the primer coat with a point or the back of his brush to make a general outline.
Once he had this as his guide, he could repose his models in the same position when needed.
Artists like Leonardo da Vinci would paint slowly, layer by layer, letting each coat dry
before applying another. Caravaggio however would paint extremely fast while the undercoat was still
not dry, and blend colours without waiting for each application to dry. Having the model he was paying
in situ, accounted for the speed at which he painted. For flesh tones he would blend in lead-white
in increasingly delicate strokes, and for final highlights he would use pure lead white.
Infrared images reveal he rarely reworked "The Taking of Christ" or changed the composition
In the painting process. An exception is that a faint outline of a second ear shows that Judas's head was originally higher.
"The Taking of Christ" was considered a great masterpiece in his day,
but it would soon disappear under mysterious circumstances for 300 years.
Although famous during his lifetime, Caravaggio was forgotten about almost immediately after he died.
He simply went out of fashion.
But he was rediscovered by critics in the early 20th century,
and although they knew he had painted "The Taking of Christ", it had not been seen for centuries,
and as far as they were concerned it was lost forever. Ciriaco Mattei had commissioned the painting from
Caravaggio in 1602, but by the time it was sold by his descendants 200 years later, to a Scotsman,
it was thought to be a copy by Gerard van Honthurst.
An irish woman was on holiday in scotland in 1921,
when she bought the painting in an antique shop and brought it home to Dublin.
She later donated the painting to Jesuit priests in Dublin, who hung it in their dining room.
Where it would remain, gathering dust, for the next sixty years.
In 1990 the priest sent it to be restored
and to the art world's shock, an expert discovered that it wasn't a copy.
It was in fact a genuine Caravaggio.
in 1993 the long lost painting finally went on view to the public.
After the murderer in Rome, Caravaggio went to Naples - then Malta - then Sicily.
Everywhere he went, he painted masterpieces, but he also created even more enemies.
After a life on the run, he died alone on a beach in Tuscany.
Caravaggio would create profoundly spiritual work, while living his life in the gutter.
His paintings are compelling, precisely because of this dichotomy.
They have an overwhelming truthfulness that appeals to us on a deep emotional level.
Caravaggio rejected the dominant tradition of Italian painting,
and painted Christian scenes as if they were taking place right here, right now.
In a strange parallel of "The Taking of Christ", his body also disappeared for centuries.
Only to be discovered in 2010. New tests showed that it wasn't syphilis or malaria,
or one of his many enemies that killed him, as was thought.
It was lead poisoning - from his paints.