Title: ʻOd be-ʻene ha-mitbonen
Description: "Color is where our mind and the universe meet", said the painter Paul Cézanne, meaning that we do not see all the details in our field of vision, but only perceive what our brain has been trained to perceive. The seventeenth-century painter Caravaggio, whose life and work this book discusses, largely shaped the modern field of vision. He was forgotten, rediscovered only in the second half of the twentieth century, and upon his return to consciousness changed the way we see. The modern use of lighting, darkness and color and the positioning of the figures in space to direct the gaze - their origins lie in his work. Caravaggio was the successor of an almost unknown Venetian painter - Tintoretto, who perfectly united two important painting traditions: the tradition of Michelangelo, which emphasized form, and the tradition of Titian, which emphasized color. The book in front of you therefore deals with darkness, color and light in the works of Caravaggio and Tintoretto and in the process looks at these issues from the perspectives of religion, art, art history, history, psychology, linguistics, Neuroscience and alchemy. The book also weaves discussions about the influence of the "spirit of the age" on the works of the two and the answer they gave to the question about the relationship between the spiritual world and the material world."
Subjects: Painting, Criticism and interpretation, Realism, Art and society, Color in art, Realism in art, Chiaroscuro
Places: Italy
People: Tintoretto (1518-1594), Michelangelo Merisi da Caravaggio (1573-1610)
Time periods: 16th century