Michelangelo Merisi da Caravaggio, The Supper at Emmaus, 1601, oil on canvas, 55 x 77″ / 141 x 196.2 cm (National Gallery, London)
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Dr. Steven Zucker: [0:04] We’re in the National Gallery in London, and we’re looking at one of the great Carvaggios. This is “The Supper at Emmaus.” It dates to about 1601, and it’s a large painting.
Dr. Beth Harris: [0:14] It is large.
Dr. Zucker: [0:14] It’s horizontal and the figures are actually life size, so that there’s a real sense of our proximity, our presence at this table.
Dr. Harris: [0:23] There’s even a space for us, and the story is that Christ has been crucified and his disciples are walking along a road. A man joins them; when they all sit down for dinner, this third man breaks the bread and at that moment is revealed to be the resurrected Christ.
Dr. Zucker: [0:41] And we’re seeing the reaction of those two disciples.
Dr. Harris: [0:44] The moment when they recognize him. We have a split second in time and this high drama.
Dr. Zucker: [0:51] The disciple on the left in the tattered green shirt or jacket looks into the table, seated at the table as we are. His reaction is our reaction as we look to Christ.
Dr. Harris: [1:01] I love this gesture that he makes, this figure in the left corner. He’s so taken aback. He’s frightened. He’s moving his chair like, “Holy cow!” — interested and frightened at the same time.
Dr. Zucker: [1:13] That’s right, drawn back and drawn in…
Dr. Harris: [1:14] Forward, right.
Dr. Zucker: [1:15] …simultaneously. The entire painting draws forward and back simultaneously. Our eyes go in to Christ. In fact, both of the apostles frame our vision as we move towards that center. In other words, the whole painting is a kind of triangle of vision that moves in to Christ’s face.
[1:30] At the same moment, all of their hands — or I should say, the left hand of the apostle on the right and Christ’s right hand — both move out towards us, literally embracing us and inviting us visually into the image.
Dr. Harris: [1:43] Well, he couldn’t be trying to do that more. It’s not just in the hands. It’s everywhere. Look at that basket of fruit in the front…
Dr. Zucker: [1:49] The still life.
Dr. Harris: [1:49] …that hangs off the table. Caravaggio was trying to make this painting burst into our space in every possible way he can to make it immediate and real and emotional for us.
Dr. Zucker: [2:04] I want to join that table, and of course, there’s all of the complexity of the emotions of the figures, which are, of course, the majority of the painting and the painting’s purpose. But then, there’s a tremendous amount of attention that’s been paid to the still life.
[2:17] Look at the chicken. It looks good. I wouldn’t mind…
Dr. Harris: [2:20] The bread, the fruit.
Dr. Zucker: [2:20] I wouldn’t mind having the fruit. It’s all beautiful.
Dr. Harris: [2:23] It’s that physicality that we expect of Caravaggio.
Dr. Zucker: [2:26] Look, for instance, at the specificity of the joinery in the furniture. If you look at the chair on the left, the very technique of its construction is revealed to us. Everything in this painting is revealed and opened up to us, and yet the painting is also incredibly focused.
[2:42] Where are we? We’re in a kind of shallow space. It’s quite dark. He is really attending to our focus, making sure that our eye goes only where he wants it.
Dr. Harris: [2:52] Well, he puts the light there. That sharp light, almost theatrical light on the left side of Christ’s face. What I’m also struck by [is] this thing that we always see with Caravaggio too, the ordinariness of the figures. The apostle on the right looks like he has a bit of a cold.
Dr. Zucker: [3:06] Yes, it’s true.
Dr. Harris: [3:08] His nose is a little red. The apostle on the left…
Dr. Zucker: [3:09] In green.
Dr. Harris: [3:09] …will have a tear in his clothing. They’re poor. That’s what the apostles were, right?
Dr. Zucker: [3:14] It’s a rough-and-tumble world. They’re not in a church. They’re in an inn. We have the innkeeper and quite plain furniture, quite a plain place setting. This is not the pomp and ceremony that we might see Christ represented [with] when he’s represented in a church-like setting.
Dr. Harris: [3:28] As is also so typical of Baroque and so perfectly represented here. That moment when the divine enters the everyday world.
Dr. Zucker: [3:36] Making the miraculous, the spiritual, immediate in our modern world.
Dr. Harris: [3:41] So immediately, physically, realistically in our space, present.
Dr. Zucker: [3:45] That was such a goal of the Counter-Reformation, of the moment in which this painting was made.
Dr. Harris: [3:50] Confirming and reaffirming and strengthening our faith.
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