La vocación de San Mateo.

Painting card:

Title/name: La vocación de San Mateo.
Author: Caravaggio.
Year: 1599-1600
Style: Italian Baroque.
Technique: Oil on canvas.
Location: Church of San Luigi of French, Rome.

General description: This is a work made from Caravagio in 1599-1600 using oil in canvas.

This paint was make for Caravagio, Caravaggio was an active italian painter in Rome, Naples, Malta and Sicily between 1593 and 1610. It is considered the first grat exponent of Baroque painting.

It was the first major work that Caravaggio made, not fo a private collector, for a public access church, where all Rome could see his work.
Caravaggio must make more complex scene in terms of meanings, setting, number of characters and moments of the action.

Therefore, compared to the paintings he had been done with one or two figures, The Calling of St Matthew present seven, to be organized coherently and in depth in an architectural space that can no longer be circumvented by the painter in a sort of neutral of neutral background lost in the dark.
However, Caravaggio did not give up at all its plastic resources, and again the light is what gives structure and sets the composition of the canvas. Thus, after the figure of Christ who just enter the tavern shines a powerful spotlight. The light has come into darknesswith Christ and risp the space diagonally to go look at the figure of Matthew surprised that backtracks and points to himself it is doubtful that he who seeks. The light beam reproduces the gesture of Christ, reaching masterfully scope and symbolism.