Calling of St Matthew by Caravaggio, 1599-1600

 

 

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The Judith and Holofrenes and the "St Catherine" were relatively small works, for private collectors, but suddenly, in 1599, Jubilee fervour brought Caravaggio to a wider Roman stage. On May 1st, a chapel in the church of San Luigi del Francesi, which belonged to the heirs of a French Cardinal, Matthieu Cointrel (or Matteo Contarelli), opened for the celebration of Mass, a dramatic moment in its troubled history. San Luigi, which is just across the road from the Palazzo Madama and the Palazzo Giustiniani, was the national church of the French, and important to Rome's large French population.

It was run by a council of leading citizens, and had a secular clergy. Contarelli, twenty years before his death in 1585, bought the chapel, which was to be dedicated to his name saint, Matthew, and planned its decoration, suggesting subjects from Matthew's life for the frescoes, amongst them the saint's calling and martyrdom. Contarelli had clear ideas on how the scenes should be shown.

In The Calling of St. Matthews he wished the saint to be shown in the tax collector's office, busily counting money, or, "what would be better, rising in the desire to come to Christ, as Christ, passing in the street with his disciples, called him to the Apostolate. And in the action of St Matthew, as in the rest, the painter should show his skill."

The composition and the movements of the figures troubled him, and it seems likely that at this moment he turned to the painting for the left-hand wall, The Calling of St Matthew, with the aim of finding a radical solution for the problem of painting from life a large and complex multi-figured composition.

Here, and we may sense his relief, and his renewed certainty, Caravaggio, so ill at ease with the traditions of contemporary idealising history painting, turned back to the subjects of his youth, with which he had won such success and with which he must have hoped again to captivate a Roman audience. "With a boldness that cut through all convention, he transformed his popular and novel early works, The Cardsharps and The Gypsy Fortune Teller, into the material for a large religious painting.

In The Calling of St Matthew Caravaggio again drew inspiration nspiration from his own world, daringly setting the biblical scene in contemporary reality.

The splendid architecture of The Martyrdom yielded to the evocation of a dark Roman street, or perhaps the courtyard of a Roman palace, where the round-faced boy in feathered hat, leaning so nonchalantly against the saint, is again the duped youth from The Gypsy Fortune Teller, probably modelled on Minniti, while Malvasia identified the youth with his back to us as Lionello Spada. Although this is unlikely, the figures have an immediacy that suggests that Caravaggio persuaded his friends to model for him.

The setting is Matthew's tax office, but the scene conjures up the shady atmosphere of long evenings spent gambling or looking, armed, for adventure, in the streets and taverns of Rome. Indeed so concentrated and intent is the atmosphere that Sandrart thought that it showed a gambling scene set in a dark room, where Matthew is shown "seated with a bunch of rogues playing cards and throwing dice and drinking".

The subject is taken from a short passage in the gospel of Matthew (9: 9): 'Jesus saw a man called Matthew at his seat in the custom house, and said to him, "Follow me," and Matthew rose and followed him: In Caravaggio's painting Matthew, rich and fashionably dressed, as befitted his status as toll-gatherer and publican, a coin tucked in the brim of his hat, sits at his work table with his louche companions. He looks up in astonishment at the appearance of Christ, and points to himself in wonder and humility at his call.

Caravaggio sets a world of brilliant colour, of bold contrasts of reds, greens, and golds, of the varied textures of velvets, rakish feathers, and soft fur, against the timeless and austere simplicity of Christ and Peter, roughly toga-clad and barefoot. He contrasts lightness of gesture and expression with ritual solemnity, and the hand of Christ is modelled on Michelangelo's hand of Adam on the Sistine ceiling. These are the contrasts of the Roman streets, where priests and friars, seeking Christ in the poor, preached penitence and conversion.

The clarity of Caravaggio's contrasts of shapes and forms, his creation of a taut rectangle of figures, parallel to the plane, and built up around a careful balance of horizontals and verticals, seems to embody the simplicity of Christ's words. The play of light and shade creates intense drama. The figures are wrapped in shadow, and the large area of dark wall over their heads seems to weigh upon them, prison-like, suggesting man's brief stay in this gloomy world. The darkness is pierced by the shaft of light which falls diagonally across the wall, following Christ's hand, and brightens the face of St Matthew, who turns towards it.

Print DIGG MIXX!

Caravaggio "Martyrdom of St. Matthew" (1599-1600) San Luigi dei Francesi, Rome

Caravaggio "The Inspiration of Saint Matthew" (1602) Contarelli Chapel, San Luigi dei Francesi, Rome

Ghirlandaio "St Matthew the Evangelist" (1486-1490) Cappella Tornabuoni, Santa Maria Novella, Florence

Frans Hals "St Matthew" (1625) Museum of Western European and Oriental Art, Odessa

The Smart Set	Matter of Fact The Smart Set - 27 Jul 2010 at 2:07pm Caravaggio is also the man who painted “Saint Francis of Assisi in Ecstasy” and “The Calling of Saint Matthew,” neither of which can be described as the ...
The Guardian	Caravaggio: how he influenced my art The Guardian - 24 Jul 2010 at 6:06pm The Calling of St Matthew, but in New York! Making films with street people was what it was really about, like he made paintings with them. ...
Caravaggio Night 17-18 July - Simply unmissable! Spotted by Locals (blog) - 16 Jul 2010 at 10:49am ... Luigi dei Francesi with its Martyrdom of St Matthew, St Matthew and the Angel and the Calling of St Matthew; Sant'Agostino with the Madonna di Loreto; ...

   

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