Can Art Save the Artist?
say, “Yes!”
The better question may be, however: Can a bad person make it to Heaven? The Lord alone knows that answer. One suspects, however, that this is why Purgatory exists.
There is the matter of repentance, of course: the notion, as expressed by Lord Illingworth in Oscar Wilde’s A Woman of No Importance: “The only difference between the saint and the sinner is that every saint has a past, and every sinner has a future.”
I want to explore this in what we know about the lives of two great Catholic painters: Duccio and Caravaggio.
I would jump for joy were it possible to know that Michelangelo Merisi da Caravaggio(1571-1610) rests in the bosom of Abraham. Despite his many sins, which included murder, Caravaggio left a legacy of sacred art that puts him in the company of the more famous Michelangelo, Rubens, and a few other Catholic artists, none of whom has been canonized, declared venerable, or become blessed – except for Fra Angelico.
