Caravaggio
I won't lie, I love Caravaggio! His paintings look so real and modern. The Supper at Emmaus we present today looks like ... a bar scene! Do you agree? Or is it a regular dinner in an Italian trattoria? It isn't so purely by coincidence.
The painting depicts the moment when the resurrected but incognito Jesus reveals himself to two of his disciples (presumed to be Luke and Cleopas) in the town of Emmaus. They failed to recognize him, but that evening at supper he "... took bread, and blessed it, and brake and gave to them. And their eyes were opened, and they knew him; and he vanished out of their sight". (Luke 24: 30–31)
Cleopas wears the scallop shell of a pilgrim. The other apostle wears torn clothes. Cleopas gesticulates in a perspective-challenging extension of arms in and out of the frame of reference. The standing innkeeper, forehead smooth and face in darkness, appears oblivious to the event. The painting is unusual for the life-sized figures, and the dark and blank background. Typically for Caravaggio, he has shown the disciples as ordinary working men, in contrast to the youthful beardless Christ, who seems to have come from a different world. With his realism, Caravaggio seems to suggest that perhaps a Jesus could enter the daily encounters of his believers.
P.S. This is certainly one of the greatest masterpieces by Caravaggio but to truly understand his art we need to look at these 10 paintings. <3