Baroque Art: Caravaggio and his use of Chiaroscuro

Light flowed gently through their canvases, illuminating ideal forms and serene faces. Artists in the 15th century turned their gaze toward the harmony, beauty, and anatomy. Slowly, the sacred and the human began to intertwine. And yet, even amid this flourishing of form and intellect, bodies and faces in the Renaissance was too perfect and quite composed. During this era, religion was used as a medium of power and, just like everything, art was also controlled by these people. Each detail and object in the painting was mostly decided by the church. By the late 16th century, the Renaissance began to give way to something darker, more dramatic, more ‘human’. This was the Baroque, a style less interested in balance than in emotion, in awe, in the immediacy of experience.

Michelangelo Merisi, also known as Caravaggio, is known for his baroque style paintings, which are mostly from Biblical passages. Caravaggio challenged the conventions of the time, opting for realistic depictions of his subjects rather than the idealized forms that were common in the Renaissance. His characters were often depicted as everyday people rather than saints or gods. He wasn't afraid to challenge authority, and his critiques of the church and society were evident in his paintings, especially with his choice to depict saints and biblical figures in very human terms. Caravaggio’s approach to painting was ground breaking. He rejected the idealized forms of the Renaissance and instead painted ordinary people as his subjects, including beggars, street urchins, and prostitutes.

He perfected the technique of chiaroscuro, which refers to the contrast between light and dark that was used to create dramatic tension and emotional depth. This technique became a hallmark of Baroque painting. In Caravaggio’s hands, chiaroscuro became something altogether different. In The Calling of Saint Matthew, we see men huddled around a table in a smoky tavern. The rest is swallowed by black. The contrast is so stark it feels less like painting and more like reality. Then, there is the light. What’s often misunderstood is that for Caravaggio, darkness wasn’t empty. It was not a void to be filled, but a presence to be felt.

Unlike his predecessors, Caravaggio didn’t paint gods or angels as distant ideals. He found his models in the everyday, in humans. This is the true power of his work. It dignifies the human moment. Caravaggio taught us that the most sacred moments happen not in full sunlight, but in the in-between—the spaces where shadow meets clarity, where a face turns toward grace. He was breaking away from the church’s control of art by showing that holiness and grace weren't restricted to those with a divine, perfect appearance. It makes the sacred feel far more relatable, human, and real. It's something that is embedded in human experience. And that’s what makes his art still so profoundly powerful today.