Feb 19 2007
Faith in Art
Your bit o’ culture for the day is The Incredulity of Saint Thomas by Caravaggio, painted in about 1601. From the Web Gallery of Art:
This picture seems to belong to the same group as the second St Matthew and the Angel and The Sacrifice of Isaac because the same model reappears as the apostle at the apex of this composition. Like the first St Matthew and the Angel this picture belonged to Vincenzo Giustiniani and then entered the Prussian royal collection. Fortunately it was kept in Potsdam and so it survived the last war intact. This is the most copied painting of Caravaggio, 22 copies from the 17th century are known.
This drama of disbelief seems to have touched Caravaggio personally. Few of his paintings are physically so shocking - his Thomas pushes curiosity to its limits before he will say, ‘My Lord and my God.’ The classical composition carefully unites the four heads in the quest for truth. Christ’s head is largely in shadow, as He is the person who is the least knowable. He also has a beauty that had not been evident in the Mattei paintings of His arrest and appearance at Emmaus.
February 21st, 2007 at 12:03 pm
This, versus some guy throwing a crucifix into a glass full of his own urine; my, my how times have changed.