Comparative Study

Elizabeth Nunez
My comparative study will compare two artists; Salvador Dali and Michelangelo Merisi da Caravaggio. The comparison will come
within the medium used in their works along with similar techniques and ideas. My personal work will then be compared to the two
famous artists soon after.

Salvador Dali

Born in Spain in 1904 Dali was encouraged by his family to practice art all of
his life. Early in his life Dali enrolled into a school in Madrid which allowed
him to further pursue his career as an artist. It was during his time there that
Dali became influenced by cubism and metaphysics. In the late 1920s Dali
then became associated with 3 themes:
1.
2.
3.

Mans universe and sensation

Sexual symbolism
Ideological Imagery

During his life Dali was also able to interact with Picasso, Magritte, and Miro
who really influenced his cubist era. It wasnt until the late 1920s that Dali
began his surrealistic period, what he became known for.

Michelangelo Merisi da Caravaggio

Born in italy in 1571 Michelangelo Merisi da Caravaggio came into a

very hard life. Both parent died leaving Caravaggio orphaned at age
11. He then became apprenticed with a painter in Milan and later
moved to Rome to assist a variety of different painters. Until about
1595 Caravaggio began selling his work through dealers and after,
through that caught the attention of Cardinal Francesco de Monte. He
then built Caravaggio his own home. Not only was it a difficult life
Caravaggio was born into but a short one too, he died at only age 39.

Salvador Dali
Dali used unreal dreams and hallucinatory characters to create his
surrealistic pieces. He then created a method that was like a mental
exercise. Dali called this the paranoica-critical method. Painting these
dreams and unrealistic, distorted objects and face simply became a part of
Dalis reality.

Paranoica-critical method:
A method that gets you in contact to your subconscious self
in order to enhance the creativity of the artist.
This was using subconscious thoughts and dreams to create a
reality, changing what really is into something it is not.

Michelangelo Merisi da Caravaggio

Caravaggios pieces often had a lot to do with

religion. One of the things he most painted was
young boys and angles along with lutenists or John
the Baptist. Many times throughout his work a man
names Cecco would appear often. He is known to
be Caravaggios only known assistant and hes also
known to potentially have been his lover.
Michelangelo was really intrigued by what the eye
saw and so he greatly enjoyed realism and
naturalism. He preferred flaws over idealized
images. Also, Caravaggio, being a baroque painter
always went for the black background in order to
represent the fears of man and his models usually
wore no clothes or bad clothing to stand for the
beauty of humanity.

Salvador Dali

Odd characters in Dalis

paintings could be
inferred come from or
have a lot to do with Dali
s personality. Throughout
his life Salvador Dali was
never the one to be on top
of it all and so with his
distraction came the
creation of his distorted
and dream-like figures.

Always being considered a bit weird it may have been extremely difficult for Dali to find a way to express himself. He was a bit all
over the place until he came across surrealism. It was essentially what he became known for but he probably felt a connection with
surrealistic work.

Michelangelo Merisi da Caravaggio

Caravaggio seemed to very

rarely step away from his typical
Baroque-style pitch black
background. Although a
technique and a characteristic of
the style of art he very much
worked in there could have been
more to it. Baroque being a very
dramatic art form, it could be a
way for Caravaggio to represent
his life. How hard it probably
was to lose your parents so
young and be on your own

Caravaggio also very often painted his models with worn out clothing, usually ripped. This then
could be due to his efforts of trying to stay humble. He lost everything so young but through his
painting skills he was able to become very good at what he did and he began to gain much
recognition for it. Incorporating these types of things into his artwork most likely helped him
remember his past ans where he initially came from

Salvador Dali

Michelangelo Merisi da
Caravaggio

Each individual's reality was being

portrayed through their work. Dali enjoyed
turning what was real life into what he
wanted it to be and viewed it as his reality.
Caravaggio was fascinated by the idea of
realism and painting everything the way he
viewed it and that was his personal reality.
Both artists come together with their
Christian art that they both shared for a
period of their active work. Most of their
works were also made using oil paints on
canvas and that was for the majority of each
of their careers. One could also assume that
both of their art works have to do with self
expression. Dali wasnt very focused until
he began surrealism. Caravaggio could have
chosen Baroque because of the emotions
portrayed dramatically like those of him
being orphaned at age 11.

Both of the painting by Dali and Caravaggio are different yet extremely similar in certain aspects. Artists on both ends are not only
using food to paint but they are also utilizing the concept of still life and introducing it to their work. Dalis piece presents a very
baroque inspired background along with very baroque like use of light and dark which we mainly see take place in Caravaggios work.
Now, Caravaggio stepped away from his usual dramatic work in the piece presented and used much color which we see more in Dalis
work.
Simplistic background without
much going on puts emphasis on
the still life.

Intricat
et
and the exture in both
slice of
t
bread f he grapes
or reali
sm.
Extra element in
the painting with
extreme detail an
d realistic feel.

The Basket of Bread, 1945.

Basket of Fruit, 1599.

Although both pieces are practically the opposite of what the artists were used to making them very different, it made them the same.
This indicates that during these two individual times the artists stepped away from their comfort zone and they both went into
opposite direction with this food still life painting.

The use of lights and darks in dalis piece on the left mostly towards the top really reflect the
techniques used with light and shadows in Baroque style art as we see in Caravaggios piece
on the right. Due to the use of light both pieces turn very dramatic.

Both us
in
of each g Christ as the
piece.
main fo
cus

Baroq

ue sty

le blac

k simp
listic b

ackgro

Christ of Saint John of the Cross, 1951.

und.

In these two pieces we see once again

what was seen previously. Both artists
are using religion as part of their
pieces along with Christ being the
main focus on both pieces. These, too,
fall under Christian art which is
something both artists did quite often.

The Taking of Christ, 1602.

In both paintings the use of dark background came into play.

Both pieces are categorized to be

Christian art.

Using

Crucifixion, 1954.

the cr

oss fo

r the c

rucifix

ion.

Each painting is using the same idea of

crucifixion although on different people.
Both men seem to be religious figures.
Caravaggios piece indicated that the man
being crucified is a saint, and in Dalis
piece, the man is being looked up on and
seems to be of a much larger proportion.
The idea of crucifixion is a religious
concept on its own already connecting
both.

Crucifixion of St. Peter, 1601.

Dali- Sleep

The inspiration from my self portrait came strictly from Salvador Dalis famous work of art, Sleep. I intended to mimic the strong and
dramatic facial features shown in Dalis piece through shadows. Also, the idea of having the face be apart from the body came from this
same Dali piece as well for he has the same thing going on only with absence of the body which I decided to incorporate.

Dali- The Persistence of Memory

Following up on Dalis idea for the piece the Persistence of Memory, he

followed a theme of obsession. Not only was I inspired by the theme and idea
behind it, but in my piece I also intended to incorporate some of the
movement he had going on like the drops of time and dripping gold in the
same way he had the melting clocks.

Caravaggio- The Basket of Bread

This being my first and only full photography piece, I wanted to put a lot of emphasis on light and no other movement became better
than baroque. I followed the idea of Caravaggio with capturing images of still life and how something simple can be so beautiful. What I
did here was that I kept a pitch black background and captured photos of cultural pieces which the light bounces off of to create that big
contrast usually seen in the movement.

For this piece I was extremely inspired by baroque and my main inspiration in that
movement was Caravaggio. I dug deeper than simply contrast in lights and darks I
went further into religion. Caravaggio painted many religious pieces and this is
something I found in common with his work and I. Incorporating a rosary became the
ultimate way to represent my religion and using a dark box and black on black and
letting natural light hit it on its own really made that contrast become more present.

Christ of Saint John of the Cross, 1951.

Dali- The Persistence of Memory

Caravaggio- The Basket of Bread

In this piece titled Addicted, I combined both styles of Caravaggio and Dali into one
from their famous works. In the Persistence of Memory, Dali portrays an obsession
with time and the idea of obsession was where this piece began with the osession
addicts have with alcohol. The black color of the bottle was then inspired by the
baroque movement Caravaggio became a part of and the idea of a still object came
from Caravaggios piece the Basket of Bread.