The total area of sky in Caravaggio's paintings covers, by my count, no more than a few square inches tucked away in the corners of two quite early pictures. Otherwise his subjects are set up on crowded, enclosed stages. As time goes by general illumination is replaced by angled shafts of light. If the action takes place outdoors it is at night by lantern light. The even light of the early pictures - the Gypsy fortune-teller, the card sharps, the boys with lutes and grapes - gives way to scenes in which strong illumination from an implied door or window strikes faces and bodies selectively. His most powerful and coherent compositions - the Calling of St Matthew in the Contarelli Chapel in S. Luigi dei Francesi in Rome, for example - use light to dramatise essentials. In that picture it streams past Christ to highlight the faces of the saint and his companions who are gathered round a table.

LRB 31 March 2005 | PDF Download