Skip to main content

Caravaggio, 'Doubting Thomas', 1601-2



My eye is not drawn, unlike most people's, to the finger probing Christ's chest, but to a more insignificant detail. The viewer can tell that this is an astonishing scene by the hole in Jesus' side but also by the way Caravaggio has drawn the other men in the painting. I instantly notice the lines on their foreheads, all mirroring one another. The delicacy of these lines highlight how shocking and unbelievable this scene is. This man is supposed to be dead. They all witnessed it happening. These lines on Thomas' forehead are so many that they are virtually melting into his hairline, so deeply etched they look like a ribcage. And as the viewer, I find myself mirroring his expression without thinking about it. I am as surprised as if I were the one prodding the son of God. 

Caravaggio was a master when it came to chiaroscuro. The over exaggerated shadows on Christ's drapery are a good example of this, amplifying the casual folds of the cloth. All of the shadows are heightened by the dark background Caravaggio decides to set the figures on, also increasing the three dimensional aspect of the piece with a stage spotlight. One of the reasons my eye is drawn to the lines on the men's foreheads is because of the dramatic use of light: that sheen of smooth, taut skin above the wrinkles. It's almost as though if you zoomed in on this painting with a modern camera, you would be able to see the beads of perspiration on Thomas' forehead. 

But the lines tell us something else: these are ordinary men witnessing something extraordinary. Caravaggio has also highlighted this ordinariness through the light on Thomas' shoulder, which shows a rip in his clothing. There is nothing divine about this situation, it just looks like a group of men and if the one on the left did not have a hole in his side we would not necessarily know that was Jesus.There are no halos or any traditional signs that this is Christ. All of the men are dressed plainly, as if Caravaggio has just picked a bunch of people off the streets to model from. The rip mirrors the tear in Christ's flesh, making the divine human and the human divine.

As well as pioneering tenebrism, Caravaggio used unusual compositions to dramatic effect. Here we are crammed into a tight diamond with the four heads almost knocking into each other. The dark background throws the figures forward, so that the curved fingers of Christ's hand and Thomas' dirty nails push into our world. Unnecessary extras are simply cut off. This is a picture about faith and faith is a simple thing. Doubt is the darkness in the background but these men have come into the light.

Comments

Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

Mark Rothko, 'Light Red over Black', 1957

  My eye is not drawn to the painting itself but the title of the painting, 'Light Red Over Black'. We would automatically think that the black is on top of a red background, but Rothko has flipped this around, subverting the title just like he subverting the meaning of what it was to be an artist and what Art actually was. During this time, art was going through rapid changes, with abstract expressionism coming into full force (Rothko, Pollock). But Rothko showed that all this change was for the good, even if for him, it was short lived.  The colour red in this painting is searing and the black struggles to fully cover this velvety border, especially at the bottom of the canvas. Unlike the black squares which have a hazy quality to their edges, the red is clear and impregnable. It is hard to figure out what this represents - the Tate has suggested a window perhaps, but if it is a window then what are we looking out into? Perhaps it is night, or perhaps the viewer is catching ...
Post a Comment
Read more

Egon Schiele, 'Dead Mother', 1910

  My eye is drawn to the hand. Those long, bony fingers are so characteristic of Schiele but here they are particularly skeletal and deathly – the veins seem to have been injected with poison. And they are a warning right in the foreground of the painting that keeps the viewer at bay as an outsider to this incredibly intimate relationship between mother and child, and sets the tone of death and mortality which hangs over the whole image. The mother cradles her child in a womb-like shroud, alluding to childbirth and the death of the mother explained in the title. She seems desperate to feel that bodily connection with her child, highlighted by the emphasis on her craned neck as she tries to connect to the baby. There is a clear link between the mother’s bent neck and the child’s bent neck, again emphasising their longing to be with each other. However, the darkness around the child is almost like ropes, with flecks of white in the painting making it look as though the darkness is wo...
Post a Comment
Read more

M.K. Ciurlionis, 'Funeral Symphony VII', 1903

  There are many who have been left out of the art historical canon and Lithuanian artist and composer Mikalojus Ciurlionis is one of them. Producing over 200 musical works and 300 paintings, his career was extensive, prolific and multifaceted. Yet, he was a 'genius cursed by fate' according to artist and critic Alexandre Benois, dying from exhaustion in 1911. Praised within his lifetime, Ciurlionis is virtually invisible today, especially to a Western viewer. Describing one artwork by Ciurlionis is not enough to appreciate his diversity and synthesis of artforms - pastels, as this work shows, vignettes, oils, designs for stained glass, even abandoning the easel for cardboard. More importantly, he was indebted to the Lithuanian landscape. Ichiro Kato refers to him as 'Lithuanian in nature and national feeling...a genius from the Baltic lands', reflected in works including  Serenity depicting idyllic, peaceful settings of mountains and lakes, devoid of humanity. Like man...
Post a Comment
Read more