Caravaggio’s Masterpieces: Realism and Dynamic Composition
In the profound darkness, where one must imagine the depth, we encounter *Caravaggio’s Head of Goliath*. The depiction focuses on the back of Goliath’s head, still retaining some semblance of life. David is represented almost like a child, while Goliath is portrayed as a vulgar person. This naturalism is evident in details like black nails and dirty clothes. Caravaggio masterfully blends reality with unreality, creating a sense of depth and ambiguity.
Caravaggio’s Head of Goliath
The painting’s stark contrast and raw emotion are characteristic of Caravaggio’s style, drawing the viewer into the grim reality of the scene. The artist’s choice to show Goliath’s head from this angle emphasizes the recent, violent act and the lingering presence of death, yet with a hint of life, adding a layer of psychological complexity.
Supper at Emmaus: Titian vs. Caravaggio
In contrast to the statism often found in earlier works, *Titian’s* idealized realism depicts figures as wealthy, adorned in silk dresses, with a richly dressed servant rather than a simple landlord. Titian’s composition, influenced by Leonardo da Vinci’s *Last Supper*, emphasizes static equilibrium, while *Caravaggio’s* figures are strikingly dynamic. Titian’s background features a detailed landscape, a characteristic of Renaissance art, a detail often absent or minimized in Caravaggio’s work.
Titian’s figures are often frontal, but Caravaggio, despite placing figures in the foreground, avoids strict frontality. He draws the viewer into the scene by positioning one of the apostles with his back to us. The figure on the right, *Saint James* (Santiago), with his pilgrim’s staff, reacts with an expression of profound recognition of Christ, raising his hands. This gesture creates a diagonal line with his arms that guides the viewer’s eye towards Christ. The composition is highly dynamic: while the apostle with his back to us initially draws us in, it is James’s outstretched arms that fully immerse us and lead us to Christ, creating a movement from James to Christ and then back to Christ’s figure.
Notable still-life elements include the basket, precariously placed at the edge of the table, appearing to extend into the viewer’s space. Each figure, each apostle, is depicted as a common person from the street: rough, with dirty shirts, and even grime on their faces. They resemble the landlords and ordinary people of Caravaggio’s own time, reflecting his practice of using real-life models.
Christ is represented as a beardless Jesus, not as a conventionally beautiful or idealized figure. His face is slightly full, with flushed cheeks, departing from the elongated, ethereal depictions common in earlier art. The traditional white tunic is absent; Christ’s tunic is red, symbolizing his recent resurrection and perhaps the ‘robe of death’ he has overcome. It is when Jesus blesses the table that the apostles realize what they are witnessing is not a hallucination, but a true resurrection.
The Contarelli Chapel: Caravaggio’s Commission
Matteo Contarelli, a man of French origin but deeply Italianized, commissioned a chapel where the Cavalier d’Arpino had already begun work. Three oil paintings related to *Saint Matthew* were entrusted to Caravaggio. Of these, the last, *Saint Matthew and the Angel*, was initially rejected for its perceived lack of decorum.
To fully appreciate these works, one must consider their original placement within the chapel. The chapel featured a skylight that illuminated the space. Caravaggio masterfully utilized this natural, high light source to directly illuminate his paintings, creating a dramatic effect (known as ‘light from above’). The large canvases required Caravaggio to create complex compositions, prompting him to rethink his approach to painting, as he now had to accommodate larger, broader scenes with a greater number of characters.
The Calling of Saint Matthew: A Moment of Revelation
Matthew was a tax collector, and from all the people present, Jesus chose him. The painting depicts the pivotal moment when Jesus says to Matthew, ‘Follow me.’ A dramatic beam of light, originating from an unseen source, highlights Matthew, drawing the viewer’s eye to him. Caravaggio masterfully integrates the chapel’s natural light source, making it appear as if the light illuminating Matthew in the painting originates from the actual window within the chapel, even though that window (located at the bottom) does not, in reality, emit light.
The light also subtly illuminates the figures’ legs, creating depth, space, and a sense of three-dimensionality. This painting symbolizes Jesus founding his Church, contributing to its timeless composition. Caravaggio deliberately mixes characters from different eras, or clothing not chronologically linked, as seen with Jesus and Peter dressed in traditional robes, while the other figures wear seventeenth-century attire.