Baroque1600
The Calling of Saint Matthew
Caravaggio
Curator's Eye
"Observe Christ's hand: it is a direct echo of Adam's hand by Michelangelo. Caravaggio places the viewer at the same level as the protagonists in a dark and timeless tavern."
A visual shock where the divine erupts into sordid daily life. Caravaggio's light becomes the vehicle of divine grace, transforming a tax collector into an apostle.
Analysis
Caravaggio revolutionizes sacred painting by placing this biblical episode not in an idealized ancient setting, but in the darkness of a 17th-century Roman tavern. The narrative follows the Gospel of Matthew, where Jesus sees a man sitting at the customs office and says to him, "Follow me." The painter captures the precise moment of the call, the second grace touches an ordinary man immersed in the material concerns of the world.
The use of chiaroscuro, or tenebrism, is not merely aesthetic; it is theological. The light does not come from the window, which remains dark, but enters from the right, following the movement of Jesus's hand. It symbolizes the spiritual light that pierces the darkness of sin. The characters on the left are dressed in Caravaggio's contemporary fashion, reinforcing the idea that Christ can appear at any time, in the most trivial present.
Christ himself is almost hidden by Saint Peter's shadow. Only his face, hand, and feet are illuminated. Peter, added later to the canvas, represents the mediating Church between the divine and the human. His presence reminds us that God's call often passes through an institutional structure, although Jesus's gesture is strikingly immediate.
The exact identity of Matthew is still debated among experts. For the majority, it is the bearded man pointing at himself, looking incredulous. For others, Matthew might be the young man leaning over the coins, the one who hasn't yet looked up, making the work a portrait of the second preceding conversion. This uncertainty reinforces the dramatic tension of the painting.
Finally, the work is part of the Counter-Reformation context. The Catholic Church sought powerful images capable of touching the hearts of the faithful and reaffirming the possibility of salvation through faith and works. Caravaggio responds perfectly to this requirement by making the miracle tangible, physical, and almost brutal.
The first secret lies in Christ's hand. Caravaggio almost exactly copied the gesture of Adam's hand in Michelangelo's Creation of Adam fresco. But here, it is a gesture of "recreation": Christ is the new Adam who restores spiritual life. This nod to the Renaissance master shows the immense ambition of the young Caravaggio who wants to compete with the greatest while subverting their codes.
Another fascinating secret was revealed by X-rays: the figure of Saint Peter, in the right foreground, did not exist in the first version. Caravaggio added him later, probably at the insistence of his ecclesiastical patrons. Without Peter, Christ stood alone facing Matthew, a direct and raw contact. The addition of the apostle symbolizes the Church interposing itself between God and man, a strict theological requirement of the Counter-Reformation era.
The window seen above the characters is a visual trick. The panes are opaque, covered with a kind of parchment or centuries-old dust. It lets no light through. This is a deliberate choice to emphasize that the light illuminating the scene is metaphysical, of divine origin, and not natural. It enters from an invisible source located "behind" the viewer, physically including us in the tavern space.
The characters on the left are real models Caravaggio associated with. The elegant young man with the feathered hat is found in several of his other paintings, such as "The Cardsharps." By using the same models for genre scenes (gambling, cheating) and sacred scenes, Caravaggio broke the boundary between the profane and the sacred, which caused immense scandals in his time.
Finally, there is a secret hidden in the clothing. While Christ and Peter wear timeless robes, the tax collectors wear expensive silk doublets. Caravaggio thus emphasizes the contrast between apostolic poverty and sinful material wealth. The light "hits" the young man's doublet, making the material shine to better highlight the attachment to earthly goods that is about to be swept away by the divine call.
Join Premium.
UnlockQuiz
The gesture of Christ’s hand, pointing towards Matthew, is a deliberate iconographic citation of a Renaissance masterpiece. Which one is it?
Discover
