Michelangelo Mrisi da Caravaggio was a rebellious and impetuous personality who burst onto the art scene in the late middle ages, ushering in the Baroque style of art. Compared to the flat, emotionally placid, and stationary look of Saint Matthew in the Lindesfarne Gospels (below), baroque painting was life-like, moving, and often conveying powerful emotional feeling.
Above is Caravaggio's The Inspiration of St. Matthew. The figures are boldly appear out of the darkness and the angel swirls above Matthew to guide his thoughts. Interestingly, this painting was not Caravaggio's first on this subject - his first, below, was rejected by the Chapel San Luigi dei Francesi in Rome - perhaps because it portrayed St. Matthew in too humble an image. In the painting below (unfortunately destroyed in World War II, only this black and white photograph remains), Matthew is dressed as a poor man (rather than aristocratic philosopher)and the angel is seen to guide even his hand as he reads the lines of a book.
The three St. Matthews demonstrate the different interpretative choices that an artist must make when translating an event or a story into visual form.
By the way, it's thought that the word Baroque originated from the Portuguese word barroco, meaning an unpredictable and elaborately shaped pearl.
At left is the famous Canning Sea Dragon made in the late medieval period from baroque pearls.For more about Caravaggio or helpful art history sites, check out the links below. Interestingly, there have been some recent startling Caravaggio finds in Church backrooms and lofts. Paintings of Doubting Thomas and Emmaus were found and verified just last year (for more, click here), and The Taking of Christ was found in a Jesuit House dining room in 1993 after it had disappeared some 200 years earlier.
Boston College: Biography of Caravaggio
Art and the Bible
Art History Today Blog
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