Every time I admire a Caravaggio painting, the time I spend in front of it increases.
Is it because in museums you get tired and generally in front of a Caravaggio there is a place to sit?
I would say no.
Consider the Supper at Emmaus yet another tavern painted by a great tavern-goer like Merisi.
That finger raised on that broken bread, that finger drawing attention, blessing or admonishing? The light on a probable, real face. No yielding to beauty for its own sake.
The darkness around that mysterious man and the astonishment of the beholder, the wrinkled brow of the innkeeper, the exhausted face of the maid, the tension in the bodies of the two disciples, the question:
"What is he doing?"
"Who is he?"
Michelangelo Merisi known as Caravaggio SUPPER AT EMMAUS Brera Academy.