Jacques-Edouard Berger's admiration for Caravaggio was boundless. In his role as professor of art history at the Lausanne Fine Arts College, he used this painter's oeuvre to initiate students to the realm of art. And on a study trip to Rome, the Caravaggio he presented to us "live" more than fully satisfied our newly awakened and enthusiastic scholarly expectations. Each subsequent lecture class cast new light on this great artist's oeuvre. On our way back from southern India, a surprise stopover in Rome gave us a few hours at San Luigi dei Francesi. By the time we had also indulged in a "tartuffe" (chocolate delicacy) at "Trescalini" on Piazza Navona, the magnificence of Caravaggio had made its way to our hearts on the same level as Shiva.
This approach to Caravaggio's work changed my way of living, seeing, thinking. My own zones of shadow and light unfolded, lending a dynamism to my life that, if not always easy to live with, developed into a not only exciting but, above all, vital new facet. The present Web program devoted to Caravaggio is my way of thanking Jacques-Edouard. The program texts and images are based on five of his lectures.
The painter is a medium, revealing - in the immensity of his consciousness - the very magma of our human quality, our strengths, weaknesses, the dark and light zones of our personality. To stand before a painting by Caravaggio is an experience that leaves an indelible mark.

According to Berger, Caravaggio possessed a particularly vast range of knowledge - a wide span of feelings and possibilities, great self-knowledge and understanding of his fellow man; he was familiar with the laws governing human behavior, with good and evil. His extraordinary technical prowess enabled him to translate an overall grasp of life itself into a whole language, a new message. To see a Caravaggio is to allow our own vital space, as if by mirror effect, to start resonating, to open up onto this artist's visions and world.
The experience provokes a revelation, an awakening to our own zones of light and darkness, a manner of participating in his rhythms, allowing time to flow at his tempo, travelling among vibrant blacks, allowing ourselves to be guided by a shaft of light. More still, a manner of breathing such light, of receiving Christ's vision through that of the artist.
Caravaggio was endowed with a vast and deep-rooted understanding of all things human - the joys, the horrors, the cowardice, the tenderness, the gentleness of Man. In his empathy with life, and with death, all senses flayed, in the throes of a shriek, Caravaggio pulls us along beyond all that mires us down, to where redemption glimmers as a possible. He actually transposes us into such a state of receptivity that his message pierces us as forcefully as the light flashing from St. Matthew's eyes.
Similar to the role played by the sculptor Unkei in Japanese Buddhist thought, Caravaggio is among the significant few to ferry Western painting and the message of Christ across the centuries. His works command our presence, inspiring the self-awareness necessary to open our minds and hearts to an adventure imbued with mysticism.

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