Excellent insights, Jim, and always appreciated.
Corrado, as for the brutal subject matter, to be fair, this is a subset of works specifically selected because they depicted arms and armor. As such, there is an over representation of violence portrayed. Unlike us modern collectors, to the audiences of the day, depicting weapons came with the expectation of depicting their intended use. These were not benign objects of art. They were utilitarian tools that were often nicely embellished.
Even considering this skewing, it is worth bearing in mind that the average European of the period would have extensive, first hand exposure to the ravages of warfare and otherwise violent death. Unlike today, almost everyone would have seen casualties of war, victims of executions, etc. While maybe not entirely desensitized to these images, these scenes would have been part of everyday life. Viewing these images thru our modern lens when even the meat we eat comes in sanitized plastic wrap and most of us have never had a front row seat to violence and/or war they seem unnecessarily brutal. However, anything less in 1600 would have been jarringly unrealistic. That said, despite his brutish character, not all of Caravaggio's works depicts this subject matter, and some are quite beautiful.
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