Style The Fortune Teller (Caravaggio)

caravaggio s biographer giovanni pietro bellori relates artist picked gypsy girl out passers-by on street in order demonstrate had no need copy works of masters antiquity:

when shown famous statues of phidias , glykon in order might use them models, answer point towards crowd of people saying nature had given him abundance of masters.

this passage used demonstrate classically trained mannerist artists of caravaggio s day disapproved of caravaggio s insistence on painting life instead of copies , drawings made older masterpieces. however, bellori ends saying, , in these 2 half-figures [caravaggio] translated reality purely came confirm said. story apocryphal - bellori writing more half century after caravaggio s death, , doesn t appear in mancini s or in giovanni baglione, 2 contemporary biographers had known him - indicate essence of caravaggio s revolutionary impact on contemporaries - beginning fortune teller - replace renaissance theory of art didactic fiction art representation of real life.