Explore Utrecht under the sign of the Caravaggists! This was a group of painters from Utrecht and elsewhere who travelled to Rome and fell under the spell of Caravaggio’s art. Michelangelo Merisi da Caravaggio (called Caravaggio) was a remarkable artist – in more ways than one. He and his followers Bartolomeo Manfredi and Jusepe de Ribera, (called Lo Spagnoletto), were a major influence on a host of painters in Italy who adopted Caravaggio’s style and gave it their personal twist. This group includes the young Utrecht painters Hendrick ter Brugghen, Dirck van Baburen and Gerard van Honthorst.
After these three artists returned to Utrecht, this city and the Netherlands, too, got to know the often dramatic chiaroscuro painting of Caravaggio and his surroundings. The style that now is called caravaggism even had its impact on artists who never traveled to Rome and Italy, like Abraham Bloemaert and Rembrandt van Rijn.
In the winter 2018/2019, the Centraal Museum in Utrecht presented an important special exhibition on painting of the caravaggisti in Europe and Utrecht – a welcome occasion for Kukullus to offer a guided city walk in Utrecht as a supplement to this show. And in 2026 an exhibition about Gerard van Honthorst is being shown in the same museum.
This drawing by the Utrecht scholar Arnoldus Buchelius (Arnout van Buchel) from his ‘Diarium’ shows what Utrecht looked like around 1593-1600 (view from the west).
The world of the Caravaggisti in Utrecht – a guided city tour
This guided city walk through Utrecht brings you closer to the world of the Utrecht Caravaggist painters. What characterized Utrecht in this period? Where did the three painters Hendrick ter Brugghen (also spelled Terbrugghen), Dirck van Baburen (or Babueren) and Gerrit van Honthorst live, where could we have found their former teachers Abraham Bloemaert and Paulus Moreelse, who had taught them the basis of their profession? Who were these Caravaggisti, anyway? And how should we imagine Utrecht during the first decades of the 17th century?
Book a guided city tour in the footsteps of the Utrecht Caravaggist painters and the world they lived in in Utrecht and stroll along the places in the city that were of importance for this groundbreaking group of artists.
Crowning with Thorns, Utrecht, Catharijneconvent, painted by Dirck van Babueren, c. 1621-1622, shortly after his return from Italy
