Lessons from Caravaggio and Banyan Trees
Banyan Tree, West Palm Beach
At the gate of the Norton Museum in West Palm Beach is a massive banyan tree. It superimposes over the entrance of the museum and already provides the visitor with a sense of rootedness. It is not lost upon me that the lifecycle of a banyan tree is between 200-500 years; standing in front of this gigantic entity, one feels the distant echoes of the various walks of life that have stood before this very banyan tree, and the thousands of conversations it has witnessed. If trees could talk. Tweet, even.
Something I find especially fascinating about banyan trees are their aerial roots - quite uniquely, their roots sprout first from branches and then eventually reach the soil. Somehow illustrating that the starting point doesn’t always have to be the ground, but that in order to grow in stature at the top, it must strengthen its foundation by continually going deeper within its roots.
The Banyan tree evokes the power of expanding into the world, taking up space, and uniquely embracing the many prongs and branches of ourselves that can grow in various directions. Some branches will be met with sunlight and encouraged to flourish, while others might remain in the shadows, reworked little by little until they can grow in the direction of bloom.
Just like the Banyan trees take up space at the entrance of the Norton, so does the Baroque style artwork that is featured in the upper floors of the museum. Once a pejorative term used to describe something that was gaudy - too elaborate and dramatic - the word baroque eventually transitioned into a more neutral term for the grand, almost theatrical style of art that rocked the 17th century.
Like the Banyan tree’s branches that were partially in the light and others in the shade, the Baroque style was characterized by the contrast of light versus dark. Arguably the most famous Baroque artist was the great Italian painter Michelangelo Merisi da Caravaggio (1571-1610), commonly known simply as Caravaggio. Caravaggio revolutionized painting with his chiaroscuro, or tenebrism — using extreme contrasts of light and dark, and understanding that without an element of darkness, the brilliance of the light could not be seen. A concept that we can stand to recall even in 2023, in a world that in recent years has been characterized by global pandemics, political polarization, and climate extremes as never seen before. But one that has also been marked by great scientific discovery, considerable social progress and a level of both physical and mental health awareness that our predecessors never witnessed.
The genius of Caravaggio is multifaceted - the artist who famously never made a preparatory drawing, Caravaggio let his emotions take life and dove head first into his paintings. Whichever direction the painting took would be what it would remain. The original “go with the flow,” suivre le courant. Each highlighted facial expression painted by Caravaggio was only made possible by a smoldered silhouette. The contrast between the two accentuated the emotion within the subject’s expression, whether it be deep despair or an expression of ecstasy. But Caravaggio was a troubled genius - he created most of his compelling works, such as Narcissus (1597) and Medusa (1599) as a fugitive from the law. His paintings, a reflective pool for his life, depicted human emotion in turmoil. Caravaggio committed violent assault and even its most extreme manifestation, murder. And yet his troubled personality only added to his notoriety, his artistic oeuvres talking pieces for his scandalous existence.
Perhaps it was here that the early tropes of the doomed, self-destructive genius, were starting to take form. This fascination with the tortured artist is reflective of the human psyche’s wider interest in scandal - the quiet assurance that comes with the knowledge that there exists a more negative situation or existence than one’s own. This also explains why most news broadcasted in news outlets is negative, and why the reflex upon hearing about a startling world event, calamity or celebrity plot twist, is to tune in.
Still yet - the Baroque style reminds us that even in this deep darkness came light. Without Caravaggio’s influence, other monumental artists such as Rembrandt would have never existed, building on the concept of contrast and nuance. Their art, their life’s work, was to illustrate that light cannot exist without darkness. A key reminder for us that every shadow can only exist if there is sunlight on the other end. A quick shift in perspective causes the shadow to vanish, eclipsed by the sun.
