Day 10

Today we presented on the painter Caravaggio and his painting that is called "The inspiration of Saint Matthew". Caravaggio was an Italian artist who worked in Rome, Naples, Malta, and Sicily. He had a realistic view of the human state and a baroque influence. A lot of his paintings had to be redone because of their realism was too vulgar for the church. There were two paintings of the Inspiration of Saint Matthew that were commissioned for the Contarelli chapel in the church of San lungi del francesi in Rome. Another artist attempted to paint the inspiration first, but after years of work he submitted a subpar painting and Caravaggio was chosen to paint it instead. 

The first version of the inspiration of st Matthew

This black and white copies are all that remain of the original. After it was rejected, a private collector purchased it and put it in his own home. It was later burned during World War Two in a fire. Although it appears to be a painting, it was actually three dimensional and had solid modeling. The foot was positioned so that it would be directly above a priest when he was holding up the Eucharist. One of the reasons it was rejected was because it looks like the angel is telling Matthew what to write. Another reason is because Matthew doesn't look like a saint in his commoner clothes.

The Inspiration of Saint Matthew 

This was also done by Caravaggio and completed in 1602. Saint Matthew is kneeling and looking at the angel above him. He appears to be on a tottering stool because he just ran over to the table to start writing. The angel is counting the generations on his fingers because Matthew is tracing his family tree. His clothing is much more elegant and fit for a saint. Both paintings have the same subjects, but the distance between Matthew and the angel differs. The clothing in the two paintings is another important difference. The first painting also depicts his closeness with God. It was really interesting learning about these paintings in class and then being able to go see them in person. I was very surprised how thick the canvasses were from all of the paint. I was surprised by how short his life was and how his most prominent paintings came for  1599-1606, his second period in Rome where he painted sacred subjects. I didn't like how dark most of his paintings were after we saw how bright Michaelangelo's were. I did notice that Caravaggio's humans were more anatomically correct than Michaelangelos.