程阳：卡拉瓦乔油画《老千》欣赏

 Caravaggio The Cardsharps

题图来源与介绍

博物馆藏介绍  维基介绍 高分辨率大图（8M） 百度网盘大图

• 編號：Caravaggio011
• 作 者：卡拉瓦喬 Caravaggio
• 年 份：1594 - 95 年
• 原 作 材 質：油彩．畫布 Oil on canvas
• 原 作 尺 寸：90 x 112 cm
• 館 藏 處：美國德州華茲堡金柏莉美術館 Kimbell Art Museum, Fort Worth, Texas

     《纸牌作弊老手》——表现另一个不懂世故的男孩落入纸牌骗子的圈套——心理上更复杂，也许是卡拉瓦乔的第一件真正的杰作。像《算命者》一样，《纸牌作弊老手》非常受人欢迎，现存有超过50个副本。更重要的是，它吸引了红衣主教弗朗切斯科·马里亚·德尔·蒙特的光顾。弗朗切斯科·马里亚·德尔·蒙特是罗马城里重要的鉴赏家，自此以后，卡拉瓦乔能够和明尼蒂共用红衣主教玛德玛宫里的一个房间。

—— 维基百科：卡拉瓦乔

     在他小时候学画的时候，据野史曾经被收留他的主教作为娈童玩弄，所以他一方面很排斥这种不伦的恋情，一方面又深深的影响了他，在抗争那个主教的同时他也深深的陷进这样的恋情，对美少年爱恋难舍难弃，分裂的人格导致他在绘画领域中属于出类拔萃的异类。陈丹青的书上评论卡拉瓦乔的画作少年丘比特，说一个不是同性恋的人根本不可能那么切身体会到男性的性感，把美少年的性感表现的那么切骨，异性恋很难有这样敏感的触角。

—— 卡拉瓦乔：美少年之恋

    近代西方艺术家长串名单是同性恋。譬如舒伯特。有资料说勃拉姆斯、肖邦、贝多芬，甚至托尔斯泰，均有同性恋倾向。当然，最著名的，确凿无疑的同性恋艺术家是米开朗基罗、达芬奇、卡拉瓦乔。

 —— 陈丹青：我们远远不了解人性

Caravaggio (Michelangelo Merisi), Italian (1571–1610)  【来源】
The Cardsharps
c. 1595
Oil on canvas
37-1/8 x 51-5/8 in. (94.2 x 130.9 cm)
AP 1987.06

Caravaggio was one of the pivotal figures in the history of Western art. In his short lifetime, he created a theatrical style that was as shocking to some as it was new, inspiring others to probe their subject matter for the drama of psychological relationships.

Apprenticed in Milan in 1584, Caravaggio came to Rome in the early 1590s. There his early masterpiece The Cardsharps came to the attention of the influential Cardinal Francesco Maria del Monte, who not only purchased it but also offered the artist quarters in his palace. Caravaggio was thus introduced to the elite stratum of Roman ecclesiastical society, which soon gave him his first significant opportunity to work on a large scale and for a public forum.

In The Cardsharps, the players are engaged in a game of primero, a forerunner of poker. Engrossed in his cards at left is the dupe, unaware that the older cardsharp signals his accomplice with a raised, gloved hand (the fingertips exposed, better to feel marked cards). At right, the young cheat looks expectantly toward the boy and reaches behind his back to pull a hidden card from his breeches. Caravaggio has treated this subject not as a caricature of vice but in a novelistic way, in which the interaction of gesture and glance evokes the drama of deception and lost innocence in the most human of terms.

The Cardsharps spawned countless paintings on related themes by artists throughout Europe—not the least of which was Georges de La Tour’s Cheat with the Ace of Clubs in the Kimbell.

The Cardsharps was stamped on the back with the seal of Cardinal del Monte and inventoried among his possessions after his death in 1627. Its location had been unknown for some ninety years when it was rediscovered in 1987 in a European private collection.

The Cardsharps (around 1594) is a painting by the Italian Baroque artist Caravaggio.

The work represents an important milestone for Caravaggio. He painted it when he was attempting to make an independent career after leaving the workshop of the Cavaliere Giuseppe Cesari d'Arpino, for whom he had been painting "flowers and fruit" - finishing the details for the Cavaliere's mass-produced (and massive) output. Caravaggio left d'Alpino in January 1594 and began selling works through the dealer Costantino, with the assistance of an established painter of Mannerist grotesques (masks, monsters, etc.), Prospero Orsi. Orsi introduced Caravaggio to his extensive network of contacts in the world of collectors and patrons.

The painting shows an expensively-dressed but unworldly boy playing cards with another boy. The second boy, a cardsharp, has extra cards tucked in his belt behind his back, out of sight from the mark but not the viewer, and a sinister older man is peering over the dupe's shoulder and signaling to his young accomplice. The second boy has a dagger handy at his side, and violence is not far away.