Helen Langdon's ‘Caravaggio’

Course reviews

• 
  Kevin McCarthy 14 January 2026 9:25PM

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  Overall, this proved to be a very interesting and at times challenging course. Following immediately on from Open Learn's 'Delacroix' the contrast was immediately apparent.
  
  - The course is well‑designed for readers who want a biographical narrative (admittedly this was necessarily limited by the lack of relatively primary/contemporaneous biographical sources; which were themselves at times potentially biased.)
  - However, it underserves learners who expect painting‑centred, multi‑method analysis.
  - A Schütze rather than Langdon‑style foundation would have potentially produced a more balanced and rewarding structure.
  - The late introduction of alternative epistemologies (Langdon's historical/biographical; Freedberg's style/formalism; Ostrow's iconographic method) might to some feel like an afterthought rather than an integrated approach?
  
  One further aspect would have been of specific personal interest, namely further depth into the attribution of 'Narcissus' to Caravaggio, occurring as it did by Roberto Longhi in 1916 (indeed, in the absence of this attribution defining the approximate date of the painting would not have even been possible). There is a reference to the reflection of the bare knee probably being caused by "overcleaning", however there remains some (admittedly limited) debate as to attribution between Caravaggio, Manfredi ("several of the forty or so works now attributed to him were formerly believed to be by Caravaggio") or a contemporary. For example, with regard to the deformed left hand, given Caravaggio's anatomical precision; also, his mastery of optical realism that has clearly failed the painter in this instance; the brocade is unusually decorative for Caravaggio...
  
  𝗠𝗶𝘀𝗰𝗲𝗹𝗹𝗮𝗻𝗲𝗼𝘂𝘀:
  
  The web site's 'Course content' has merged sections 2 and 3.
  
  2.6 Caravaggio's sexuality
  
  1) A suggested reference: "The Sexuality of Caravaggio and His Artistic Identity: Did Caravaggio create a homosexual style?", Luiz F. Viotti Fernandes, 06.Jan.2005, Birkbeck College.
  
  2) Saslow spelt 'oevre' correctly, i.e., 'oeuvre'; online OCR versions tend to use the included spelling.
  
  … anyway, just my ramblings, onto ‘Artists and authorship: the case of Raphael’…

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• 
  Kerry Anne Searle 19 July 2024 5:58PM

  1 2 3 4 5

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  I thoroughly enjoyed this challenging yet rewarding course. It offered so much to a novice art historian. Thank you

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