Caravaggio – The master of Light

Imagine seeing a Caravaggio painting for the first time, in, say, 1605. It’s probably
impossible for us to get into that frame of mind, to a time before TV, film, photography and video,
when the only visual arts depicting human form were painting and sculpture.

In the 16th century, the art world in Italy and beyond has seen the High Renaissance
(Michelangelo, the Last Judgment on screen), with its paintings devoted to ideal beauty, linear
perspective (DaVinci’s the Last supper on screen) and balanced compositions. This artistic
movement then developed into Mannerism with exaggerated forms (Joachim Wtewael’s Perseus
and Andromeda on screen or Giulio Romano, Ceiling of the Sala dei Giganti) strange
juxtapositions, complex, sometimes overly-sophisticated paintings that emphasised the artist’s
talents and fanciful impulses.

Then you walk into a church in Rome and you see this... (The Calling of Matthew on
screen). It must have been shocking, maybe even too much to handle, for some. It’s dramatic,
crystal clear, so… visceral that you feel exposed, vulnerable, involved. It is Caravaggio’s The
Calling of Saint Matthew. In this picture, you are seeing the moment in which Jesus Christ calls
Matthew, the tax collector, to be his disciple.

As it says in Matthew 9:9: As Jesus went on from there, he saw a man named Matthew sitting at the
tax collector’s booth.“Follow me,” he told him, and Matthew got up and followed him.

In the scripture, it is an immediate reaction, but Caravaggio inserts a moment here, a moment of
hesitation.

“As Jesus went on from there, he saw a man named Matthew sitting at the tax collector’s
booth.“Follow me,” he told him,
……………………………….. (hesitation)
and Matthew got up and followed him.”

(Back to the painting)

Jesus enters what looks like a tavern, obscured by Saint Peter and almost entirely in shadow, except
for his hand, arm, the side of his face and the slightest glimmer on the halo over his head. He points
out Matthew, who instead of getting up and going, like the gospel says, he points at himself, as if to
say (intonation) “Who, me?”.

To the left of him, two of his fellow money men don’t even realize that a divine presence has
arrived, consumed by their worldly matters. To Matthew’s right, two young men are startled in
opposite directions: one leaning toward Jesus, and one leaning away, amplifying Matthew’s moment
of indecision.

The scene makes sense right away, but Caravaggio goes much further than just intelligibility. What
really shocks about this painting is, of course, the light; the intensely dramatic play of light and
shadows called Chiaroscuro, or, when it is so pronounced like this, Tenebrism.

We can observe that the harsh light coming from the upper right of the canvas, like divine
illumination, hits out Matthew more forcefully than Jesus does, but it is not unrealistic, the opposite,
in fact. It is the kind of light we know.
We’ve seen this light before, that color, that angle, it triggers our memories of late afternoon
sunlight, when we’re reminded how dramatic reality really is. (picture of sunset in a forest on
screen). And what’s more, light from that side angle removes the need to add background space
(look for other examples – maybe Rafael? --- Juan de Pareja’s The Calling of Matthew on screen) in
order to simulate three dimensions. The way it wraps around the characters does that job just as
well, so that Caravaggio can put a flat wall or a dark space behind his scene, and his figures pop out
like they are on a stage, or in a dream like void, in a kind of hyper reality.

Look how he achieves the same effect in this painting (Judith beheading Holofernes on screen, or
David with the head of Goliath, or in the taking of Christ).

– Part Two: The taking of Christ?? or Supper at Emmaus?

Painting Gallery, so far:

“The Calling of Matthew”- Oil on canvas. Caravaggio, Church of St. Louis of the French,
Contarelli Chapel, Rome