Sunday, January 15, 2012

Vocation ...

... The Calling of St. Matthew | A Dramatic Enlightenment | Masterpiece by Willard Spiegelman - WSJ.com.


"The Calling" dramatizes an interruption, an invitation or, more accurately, a command. Levi is "called" to a new life when he least expects it. From left to right, Caravaggio's pictures depict that life: Matthew summoned, Matthew writing, Matthew murdered. The story ends in the violence of "The Martyrdom." "The Calling" is really a freeze-frame. Jesus catches Matthew off-guard, in the midst of four companions. He looks up as Jesus, his face illuminated but his body otherwise in shadow, extends his right arm in an action deliberately evoking God's to Adam on the Sistine Ceiling. In front of Jesus, slightly bending over and turning away from us, Peter repeats the gesture. The conversion has begun, although only Jesus seems to know it.

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