Image Essay #11

Michelangelo Merisi da Caravaggio (1573-1610) was an Italian painter who broke the traditional boundaries of idealism common during his era. Caravaggio was among the first painters to utilize a style of realistic naturalism, one of which caused much public outcry due to its dramatic quality. Caravaggio had many troubles with the law and false accusations while working in Rome, and spent much of his life fleeing from place to place, until he eventually died of sickness and exhaustion.

The painting above, called “The Incredulity of Saint Thomas,” is one of Caravaggio’s most famous works. In it, he demonstrates phenomenal use of the technique of chiaroscuro, which he mastered and used in nearly all his paintings. The term chiaroscuro refers to the utilization of exaggerated contrast of lights against darks to imply three-dimensionality. In “The Incredulity of Saint Thomas,” Caravaggio uses dramatic lighting, which here appears to be coming from the left, on the figures to promote the contrast of darks and lights. The values in the folds of the fabric of the men’s clothing exemplify chiaroscuro, as do the intense differences of high-key (light) value seen on the figure of Jesus on the left to the low-key (dark) value of the bottom right of the painting.