May 8 through July 18, 1999
SINNERS & SAINTS, DARKNESS & LIGHT:
Caravaggio and His Dutch and Flemish Followers

Presented by Merrill Lynch
Organized by the North Carolina Museum of Art (Raleigh)

This special exhibition celebrates not only the stunning accomplishments of 17th century painters such as Michelangelo, Merisi da Caravaggio, Hendrick Terbrugghen, Gerrit van Honthorst, Gerard Seghers and others, but also chronicles the circumstances surrounding the arrival of their paintings into North American collections.

The title of this exhibition-SINNERS & SAINTS, DARKNESS & LIGHT-refers to the two predominant themes found in both Caravaggio's art and that of his followers. The religious themes, taken from both the Old and New Testaments of the Bible, stress penitence and redemption and mirror the Roman Catholic Counter-Reformation of the late 16th century and the Church's triumphant resurgence in the 17th century. Artists employed the same dramatic and naturalistic style to works whose secular themes ranged from musicians in exotic costumes to depictions of Classical myths and stories of ill-matched lovers. This exhibition will provide a rich and widely varied array of paintings, all created from the spark of one of Western art's greatest and most fascinating painters-Caravaggio.

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