Caravaggio's Story of Matthew: A Challenge to the Conventions of Painting, by Thomas Puttfarken - Essay Example

Analysis of the Article Regarding Caravaggio This article begins by talking about the meaning of composition in a painting. The composition is something that is comprised of elements both physical and moral, and the important elements of composition include unity, propriety and perspicuity. The demonstration of this is the cartoon by Raphael called The Death of Ananias. The meaning of this event, according to Henry Fuseli, is made clear through the composition of the piece. It has a clear sense of centrality, yet the wings of the piece are also connected, and these are some of the elements that come together to provide meaning for the work. The individual participants are important in the composition, but so, too, are the relationships between the individuals in this painting. There is a unity to this painting, yet the painting also has individual components that provide the composition and the painting's meaning. 1 The article then goes on to say that the criticism and the theory of art, in general, is that there is a convention that equates the visual value of a work of art or a representation with the meaning of that work of art. The picture or work of art needs to be a clear representation of the meaning of the work.2 While life may be chaos, art needs to have some degree of unity. It must have some degree of order. That said, there are some works of art in which the meaning is different when one examines the details then if one simply looks at the painting or work of art in more of a cursory manner. The author then cites Caravaggio's pictures in the Contarelli Chape in San Luigi de'Francesci in Rome, and there are two lateral paintings. To look at these paintings, one gets one type of meaning from them. In looking at the paintings in more careful examination, there is another type of meaning. In these panels, there is the factual evidence and the visual evidence. The factual evidence of the painting relies upon the Biblical passages upon which it is based. The first of the paintings that is examined is The Calling of St. Matthew.3 This is a painting that is based upon a real event that was described in the Bible. The gospel that describes the event in this painting does not say what the meaning was of the event. Nor does the gospel talk about what is the religious or doctrinal significance of the event. Therefore, presumably, it is open to interpretation. Caravaggio's rendering of this event is not traditional, as was Cesari, who was another artist. Caravaggio, who was a young artist at the time that this was painted, decided that he would reimagine this scene, much like movies of today are reimagined for a different audience and given a different tone. In Caravaggio's painting, there are elements which are reminiscent of Da Vinci's portrayal of the Creation of Adam on the ceiling of the Sistine Chapel. This would mean that Caravaggio intended that there be a parallel drawn between Adam and Matthew. Another critic decided that it was Christ's hand that more resembled Adam's, and that there was a parallel between Christ and Adam. The author of this article gave this painting another interpretation, and stated that his interpretation of the painting was that there was a parallel between the act that is portrayed in the painting and Christ's power, which his magnetic, as opposed to life-giving. 4 The author then goes on to interpret the head and the hands of Christ in Calling of St. Matthew. 5While these are the focal point of the narrative, they are also obscured. Another detail is the position of the right foot, that was also obscured, even though this small detail was important to the meaning of the painting it meant that Christ was already moving on. This detail, too, was left in the shadows, which is another way that the artist manages to make the more significant details seem less so. The argument was that Caravaggio was clearly cognizant of the event and knew the meaning behind it. This is evident in some of the details in the painting. Yet, the details of the painting suggest a reinterpretation of the actual events that were recounted in the Bible. Supposedly in the Bible, the gestures of Christ are met with hesitation and doubt, but in Caravaggio's scene, there is more a sense of befuddlement on the part of the Matthew. Matthew does not necessarily understand Christ's commands to him, and this is how Caravaggio reinterprets the scene. Therefore, the painting is not Matthew responding to the call, but the moment before the call, when Matthew was confused and didn't necessarily understand what was going on.6 Martyrdom is another Caravaggio painting that the author described as the composition meaning something different than the actual event depicted.7 There was an earlier version of the painting, in which the figures are smaller than in the final product, and this version was one that owed a debt to the classical tradition of Roman painting. But this was abandoned because Caravaggio felt that the saint would be lost in the turmoil of the attacking soldiers and that the scale of the figures would be too small by comparison. In the actual painting, there were some figures who were nude or nearly nude, and these figures, too, were significant. The significance of these figures was that they represented the native peoples who the Catholic Church was obsessed with baptizing around the year 1600.8 Yet the assassin is also nearly naked, and this is what draws the attention to the painting. This assassin was also prominent in the scene, as he, and only he, seems to protrude from the wall. He cannot be reduced to a minor figure. On the other hand, the other four men in the background do seem to be reduced to minor figures. The author then looks at the factual evidence of the event in The Bible, the saint should have been murdered by soldiers. In the Caravaggio painting, this was clearly not the case. The four men who are running away, however, might have been soldiers. The author states that the evidence was that the nude figure who was holding the knife was not actually the murderer. Just because the man looks wildly agitated and is holding a knife, and Matthew is being murdered, does not mean that was, in fact, the murderer. The hand of the almost naked man would not have a sword in church, he could not have carried it in. There are hands which are in close proximity to one another, and there is one hand, in particular, that seems like it belonged to somebody who felt that he had left something behind (like a knife). One of the men looks like Caravaggio himself. The explanation that the author states is behind this pictorial composition is that Caravaggio was the one who murdered the saint, and that the other soldiers are the ones who were sent by the king to do the deed. The nude man, who, at first glance, looks like he had a wild and murderous expression, most likely had this expression because he just saw St. Matthew being murdered, not because he was a crazed murderer. 9 I thought that this article was extremely intriguing. The idea that there are hidden meanings behind the most famous paintings of all time was something that gives a fresh perspective to some of the paintings that we know and love. It brings us more into the mind of the artist, to see that the artist might have actually intended the scene to be something other than what it seems to be at first glance. I was especially intrigued with the reinterpretation of the martyrdom of St. Matthew. When one looks at the painting with a glance, it seems pretty straightforward the nude man killed Matthew in the church, and the others around him seem pretty horrified about it. But if one looks at the painting closely, there is the possibility of the interpretation of the author that the nude man did not murder Matthew, but, rather, had that look on his face because he was horrified that the murder had just occurred. This was a way to look at this painting with fresh eyes, and this gave the painting a different meaning and depth that it didn't have before. Conclusion This article presented a very intriguing concept that the composition of paintings might be something other than what they are supposedly portraying on the factual record. That there are ways that artists, great artists, conceive of events that lesser artists would not. A lesser artist would make a composition that shows the conversion of Matthew to Christ. The great artist, like Caravaggio, can use his composition to show the moment right before the conversion, yet lead the audience to believe, at first glance, that they are seeing the moment directly after conversion. The great artist can take an event like the murder of St. Matthew and, almost like a murder mystery, give clues that all is not what it seems in the painting, and that one has to look closer to understand the true meaning of it. This article was enjoyable to read, because it gave a new perspective and re-imagining of events and paintings that we already know about. Reference Puttfarken, T. ?aravaggio's Story of Matthew: A Challenge to the Conventions of Painting,Art History, 21.2 (1998): 163-181. Read More