David Balzer reviews Caravaggio and His Followers in Rome on view at the National Gallery of Canada through September 11, 2011.

Balzer notes: "What emerges above all in 'Caravaggio and His Followers in Rome' is [the curators'] desire for us to read the artist as revolutionarily authentic, down-to-earth, experiential. In other words, realist. …placing Caravaggio next to his followers… makes us appreciate details of the master's formal innovations, his attention to flesh, to intimacy."