Caravaggio work turns 'tactile' for the blind

(ANSA) - ROME, JUN 1 - Caravaggio masterpiece Judith Beheading Holofernes has turned tactile for the blind in Rome's National Gallery of Ancient Art at Palazzo Barberini.
    From Wednesday on, visually challenged visitors will be able to trace the immortal lines of the pre-Baroque chiaroscuro master with their fingertips thanks to an innovative 3-D reproduction produced by a Blender programme from a photo by the Architalab studio.
    The studio has already done similar projects for masterpieces at the Capitoline Museums, the Etruscan Museum at Villa Giulia, the Galleria Nazionale, the Museo Bilotti, the Museo Pigorini and the Museo Lavinium.
    Judith Beheading Holofernes is a painting of the biblical episode by Caravaggio, painted in c. 1598-1599 or 1602, in which the widow Judith stayed with the Assyrian general Holofernes in his tent after a banquet then decapitated him after he passed out drunk in order to save the city of Betulia.
    The painting was rediscovered in 1950 and is part of the collection of the Galleria Nazionale d'Arte Antica in Rome.
    The new show is called "Tactile Emotions: Judith Beheading Holofernes by Caravaggio, The Fingertips Tell Their Tale".
    Michelangelo Merisi (Michele Angelo Merigi or Amerighi) da Caravaggio, known as simply Caravaggio (29 September 1571 - 18 July 1610), was an Italian painter active in Rome for most of his artistic life.
    During the final four years of his life he moved between Naples, Malta, and Sicily until his death.
    His paintings have been characterized by art critics as combining a realistic observation of the human state, both physical and emotional, with a dramatic use of lighting, which had a formative influence on Baroque painting. (ANSA).