"The Calling of St. Mathew" Italian boroque art.

This is "The Calling of St. Mathew" painted by Michelangelo Merisi da Caravaggio, an Italian baroque artist. Italy had a head start on baroque art because of the Italian renaissance, so the only change was a focus on motion and emotion rather than reality and dynamism. Caravaggio liked to portray the life of the average man, using light to create high contrast paintings which highlight and emphasize people's faces and draws your eye to a point in the painting. Portrayed in this painting is a dingey pub in Italy with dim lighting people's faces. Your eye is directed to the man with his head down on the left of the table, because of the contrast between the light and dark, and the pointing of the people. Caravaggio was really able to capture the motion and emotion of this scene, and to me it almost seems like the whole room is blaming the guy on the left for something.