Boy Peeling Fruit

Recreation by Joel Grover.

Caravaggio is best known for his powerful lighting.  In my midterm paper on him, I commented that he portrays light with incredible realism, while making it behave in ways it never would in reality.  In recreating Boy Peeling Fruit, Joel Grover used one overpowering light source, just as Caravaggio seemed to.  The direction is identical, the color and intensity of the light is also perfectly mimicked.  The difference comes from the sharpness of the shadows: compare the shadow line of the chest of the two boys.  In the recreation, the line is sharp, as it must be considering the distance the light source has to at to create the angle and quality of the light.  But glance at Caravaggio's work and discover the softened edges of the shadowing.  Despite ever indication to the contrary, this is not realistic, cannot be.  In order to be that diffuse, the light would have to come from more than one source, or be put through an intense diffusion.  But if the light was really as diffused as it would realistically have to be, it would spill onto the background.  The room behind the boy, depicted as no more than ten or fifteen feet wide, would be illuminated by the light source.  Instead darkness prevails, because Caravaggio designed the light, just as he did the rest of the composition, for a purpose: to remove the viewer from world, bring the foreground forward, and place emphasis on the subject, and this case a boy and his fruit.