The light and dark side of Caravaggio

Caravaggio, "The Calling of Saint Matthew" (1599-1600)

Chiaroscuro in art is characterized by weak contrasts between light and dark. This tecnique was practiced long before Caravaggio came on the scene, but he was the one who made the technique definitive, darkening the shadows and transfixing the subject in a blinding shaft of light.


In "The calling of Saint Matthew", the beam of light, which enters the picture from the direction of a real window, expresses in the blink of an eye the conversion of St Matthew.