In , bestselling author Francine Prose offers an enthralling account of the life and work of one of the greatest painters of all time. Caravaggio defied the aesthetic conventions of his time; his use of ordinary people, realistically portrayed—street boys, prostitutes, the poor, the aged—was a profound and revolutionary innovation that left its mark on generations of artists. His insistence on painting from nature, on rendering the emotional truth of experience, whether religious or secular, made him an artist who speaks across the centuries to modern day. Called “racy, intensely imagined, and highly readable” by the includes eight pages of color illustrations, and is sure to appeal to art enthusiasts interested in one of history’s true innovators. is part of the “Eminent Lives” series from HarperCollins, a selection of biographies by distinguished authors on canonical figures.