CARAVAGGIO (b. 1573, Caravaggio, d. 1610, Porto Ercole) The Calling of Saint Matthew 1599-1600 Oil on canvas, 322 x 340 cm Contarelli Chapel, San Lu
CARAVAGGIO (b. 1573, Caravaggio, d. 1610, Porto Ercole) The Calling of Saint Matthew 1599-1600 Oil on canvas, 322 x 340 cm Contarelli Chapel, San Luigi dei Francesi, Rome This painting is the pendant to the Martyrdom of St Matthew and hanging opposite in the Contarelli Chapel of the San Luigi dei Francesi, the French Church in Rome. It was particularly appropriate to both the place and the time, for Rome's French community had something to celebrate: Henri IV, heir to St Louis, had recently converted to the faith of his ancestors. The subject traditionally was represented either indoors or out; sometimes Saint Matthew is shown inside a building, with Christ outside (following the Biblical text) summoning him through a window. Both before and after Caravaggio the subject was often used as a pretext for anecdotal genre paintings. Caravaggio may well have been familiar with earlier Netherlandish paintings of money lenders or of gamblers seated around a table like Saint Matthew and his associates. Caravaggio represented the event as a nearly silent, dramatic narrative. The sequence of actions before and after this moment can be easily and convincingly re-created. The tax-gatherer Levi (Saint Matthew's name before he became the apostle) was seated at a table with his four assistants, counting the day's proceeds, the group lighted from a source at the upper right of the painting. Christ, His eyes veiled, with His halo the only hint of divinity, enters with Saint Peter. A gesture of His right hand, all the more powerful and compelling because of its languor, summons Levi. Surprised by the intrusion and perhaps dazzled by the sudden light from the just-opened door, Levi draws back and gestures toward himself with his left hand as if to say, "Who, me?", his right hand remaining on the coin he had been counting before Christ's entrance. The two figures on the left, derived from a 1545 Hans Holbein print representing gamblers unaware of the appearance of Death, are so co
Size: 3629px × 2520px
Photo credit: © Carlo Bollo / Alamy / Afripics
License: Royalty Free
Model Released: No
Keywords: 1600, 1600s, 17th, baroque, caravaggio, century, chiaroscuro, choiaroscuro, italian, painter, painting, paintings, reinassance, renaissance, tenebrism
