Detail of Caravaggio's Calling of Saint Matthew: beneath a half-shuttered window, a beam of light slants across the dark wall from the upper right, past Christ's pointing hand, toward the seated group.

History · Foundations

Caravaggio's Single Light

Around 1600 Caravaggio lit his figures with one strong light against deep darkness.

He painted from live models posed under that light. Curator Letizia Treves of the National Gallery, London, says the light "always really underpins the meaning" in his pictures.

  • His first public works, in the Contarelli Chapel in Rome, caused a sensation when they were unveiled about 1600.
  • Visiting artists took the style home. The candlelit night scene grew out of his dark manner, though, as Treves notes, he never painted a candle himself.
  • He fell out of favor by the mid-1600s and was rediscovered only in the 1900s.

See

Image: Wikimedia Commons · Public domain

4 / 51