Utrecht, Caravaggio and Europe
On three previous occassions – in 1952, 1986/87 and 2009 – the Utrecht Centraal Museum paid homage to the celebrated ‘Dutch Caravaggists’ – a group of artists who travelled to Rome in the first decades of the 17th century from Utrecht and brought back the artistic innovations of Caravaggio upon their return to their native city. The current exhibition arrives at a timely moment, following the publication of new monographs on Honthorst, ter Brugghen and Baburen, which have been long overdue.
Curated by Liesbeth Helmus and Bernd Ebert of the Alte Pinakothek in Munich where it travels to in mid 2019, the exhibition is arranged according to subject matter as opposed to chronology, which allows one to see these works alongside works by their peers fom Flanders, France and Spain who were in Rome during the same period. Some less obvious artists, such as Giovanni Serodine, added subtlety to the narrative created by the selection of seventy or so paintings in the exhibition.