MICK MCSHANE is roused by a band whose socialism laces every line of every song with commitment and raw passion
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The challenge of proletarian simplicity
GORDON PARSONS finds that it is the ambiguity with which Caravaggio’s art now challenges the beholder that establishes his ‘modernity’
COMPASSION AND REGRET: David with the Head of Goliath (c. 1609–1610), Galleria Borghese, Rome
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ALEX HALL is disgusted by the misuse of ‘emotional narratives’ to justify uninformed geo-political prejudice
SUE TURNER welcomes a thoughtful, engaging book that lays bare the economic realities of global waste management
JOHN GREEN welcomes an insider account of the achievements and failures of the transition to democracy in Portugal
SIMON PARSONS applauds an imaginative and absorbing updating of Strindberg’s classic
PETER MASON is enthralled by an assembly of objects, ancient and modern, that have lain in the mud of London’s river
Caravaggio and the Creation of Modernity
Troy Thomas, Reaktion Books, £14.95
NOT another book on the life and work of Michelangelo Merisi da Caravaggio!
Troy Thomas’s admittedly attractive and easily transportable book on a Renaissance painter whose theatrical paintings insist upon attention, so different from the static biblical masterpieces that for the non-expert gallery visitor demand no more than a passing glance, may seem superfluous.
Even adding “the Creation of Modernity” would appear to promise a journey over well-trodden ground, given the ready recognition of Caravaggio’s influence on many modern artists, film-makers and art critics.
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