
The Calling of St. Matthew
1600 · San Luigi dei Francsei, Rome
Light follows Christ's pointing hand across a dim counting-room to Matthew, who gestures at himself in disbelief. The picture made Caravaggio famous overnight.
★ 9.0

Light follows Christ's pointing hand across a dim counting-room to Matthew, who gestures at himself in disbelief. The picture made Caravaggio famous overnight.

El Greco split the canvas down the middle: the traders tumbling out on the left, the disciples watching calmly on the right.

Not the desert hermit but the Doctor of the Church, in cardinal's red with one long hand resting on his own translation of the Bible.

Two fingers raised in a gesture reaching back to Byzantium, one hand on a crystal orb, the face long and sorrowful and unmistakably his.