A most unusual painting by Caravaggio, whose artistic revolution is evident in this work. The painting is in a beautiful chapel of a church in Rome.
Instead of the conventional presentation, Caravaggio places Jesus at the corner, hidden behind Peter. The light has increased with Jesus presence, before the scene was only lit through a dirty window. The play of light and shadow bring the figures to life, real, natural, a quasi-photographic quality.
Peter and Jesus are wearing tunics and mantles while the people are dressed in contemporary clothing, symbolically depicting the way of the world versus the timelessness of another world. Jesus’ gesture is so direct and compelling that it seems to suspend the action for a moment. The realism of Caravaggio was innovative, he took his models from ordinary people, and painted them not in the idealized style of other artists.
Scholars are still uncertain if Matthew is the young man sitting on the left or the man with the long beard, standing at the center. Caravaggio never answered that question. For me, I think Matthew at the time was younger than the man with the long beard so it must be the one counting the money. There are two other paintings in the chapel, we see the much older Matthew, writing his gospel under the guidance of an angel and then of his martyrdom.
The entire scene has the quality of a theater production,few furnishing, lighting and the performance of the people.
But did Jesus really choose Matthew "out of the blue", without a predicate? That's why I appreciated the approach of "The Chosen", where plenty of groundwork was laid for Jesus' eventual calling, so much so that it came as no surprise, seemingly inevitably.