Some landscape and cityscape paintings have a distinct sense of place. There is a certain appeal to paintings with subjects that are exotic and imply the romance of travel, for those of us in the U.S. that might be exemplified by images of Venice or Paris.

There is also a strong appeal, however, in the near and familiar, and many artists will devote them selves to the portrayal of the areas near where they live, finding resonance with those who have familiarity and identification with the places pictured.

Mark Campana is a Philadelphia painter who covers a range of subjects, but I particularly enjoy his depictions of houses, streets, cafes and shops in the areas of Center City (what those of us in Philadelphia call our downtown) around Rittenhouse Square and Fitler Square, both of which are areas in which I lived at one time, and both of which contain a rich array of architecture. It’s a section of the city criss-crossed with small streets that are lined with old, real townhouses, (large, 19th Century, single family city houses, as opposed to the misnamed suburban constructions for which “townhouse” is a euphemism used to avoid calling them what they actually are, row houses).

Campana has also found a rich source of subjects in the city parks themselves, Rittenhouse Square is a marvel of a city park, and Fitler Square is a small treasure, unknown even to many Philadelphia residents. The two areas actually adjoin one another, and I used to enjoy the visual richness as I walked through them on my way to school when I was a student at the Pennsylvania Academy of the Fine Arts.

Campana, was a graphic design student at the Art Institute (Philadelphia has more art schools per capita than any other city in the U.S.), but moved into gallery art shortly after graduating; and, like many artists, considers most of his painting skills self-taught. Campana is from South Philadelphia and has exhibited in the city for years, both in galleries like The Newman Galleries, The Home Works Gallery and the Kevin Butler Gallery, but also in the city’s juried outdoor art exhibitions.

I’ve encountered Campana and his work before at the Rittenhouse Square Fine Arts Annual (one of the oldest juried outdoor art shows in the nation), and I ran into him again last weekend at the Manayunk Art Show. Manayunk is an area of Philadelphia that feels a bit like a European town, perched on a hillside above a river, filled with tiny streets and small houses, and is an ideal setting for an event that is part juried art show, part street fair.

These kind of exhibitions allow Campana, and artists like him, to connect directly with their patrons in a way not ordinarily possible in a gallery setting, which lends itself particularly well to artists whose work has that element of a local connection.

Unfortunately the images of Campana’s paintings on his web site are a bit small and not always reproduced as well as I would like, making it difficult to see the visual charm in his brush marks and paint surface, lively with bits of scumbling and broken color.

I particularly like his contrasts of light and dark, textures of stone and brick and his frequent portrayal of dappled light and shade on the small side streets.

To those of you not in Philadelphia, or even the U.S., perhaps his images will pass over into the distant and different, but for me they’re wonderfully familiar.

Multiple Choice: Michelangelo Merisi da Caravaggio (Michelangelo Merisi from the town of Caravaggio, Italy) was:

A. One of the greatest painters in the history of Western art

B. A rebellious upstart who defied the conventions of religious painting, alienated patrons and incensed the church

C. A master of chiaroscuro, the dramatic contrast of light and dark, perhaps matched only by Rembrandt

D. A master of foreshortening, the difficult representation of the body or limbs from end on, possibly matched only by Michelangelo Buonerotti

E. A bragging, swaggering show off who specialized in dramatic, violent scenes of fights, struggles and particularly beheadings, one of which featured his self-portrait as the severed head of Goliath

F. One of the most respected and envied painters in Rome at the beginning of the Baroque period, and a tremendous influence on other artists

G. Largely forgotten in the centuries following his death until “rediscovered” in the 20th Century

H. A violent, irresponsible, brawling miscreant, who went looking for fights and was arrested and imprisoned for multiple assaults, one of which resulted in the death of his opponent over a disputed game of court tennis and forced him to take it on the lam for several years until pardoned by the Pope

I. All of the above.

Well, whatever else you may say of him, one thing stands out about Caravaggio: this guy could paint!

Look at his famous painting of the Supper at Emmaus (image and details, above). This is no glossed over, idealized religious scene, aglow with the unreality of poetic divinity, this a real scene with very real figures.

Everything here is tangible, and rendered with the kind of palpable fidelity to life that got some of Caravaggio’s other works rejected as vulgar and secular. Look at the disciple’s hand on the chair in the foreground, the “instant in time” position as that figure is about to rise, the outstretched hand of the beardless figure of Christ and other disciple’s hands extended into space, suspended toward or away from us in dramatic foreshortening, the rich, dark shadows, against which the whites of the cloth pop forward, the tactile physicality of the food and plates on the table, rendered with as much care and emphasis as the figures themselves, the odd way one disciple’s elbow and the other’s fingertips are cut off by the edge of the canvas, and the striking realism of the faces, more portraits than idealized figures. What a tour de force of painting skill. What a show-off. What a painter!

Though I can’t say I was unequivocally thrilled with last week’s showings of the PBS series The Power of Art (see my previous post), I will say that they were interesting and thought provoking and for that reason worthwhile. Tonight’s program will be on Caravaggio (10PM on most PBS stations), and it will be interesting to see which of Caravaggio’s faces the program chooses for its focus.

There are many angles by which to approach Caravaggio; he was a pretty remarkable fellow in more ways than one. Take your choice.