Caravaggio's "Supper at Emmaus"at the Art Institute of Chicago

Sunday marked the final day for Caravaggio’s “Supper at Emmaus” at the Art Institute of Chicago, before its  departure back across the pond to the National Gallery of London. OMNP had the chance to swoop by the Institute to see it last week, and what an understated pleasure it was.

It’s not as if you would expect a big crowd to be braving the winds off Lake Michigan to check out a painting on a weekday in January, even if it’s a masterpiece making a rare stateside appearance. Nevertheless, such circumstances, along with a subsequent tour of the Institute’s entire European wing  with about five other people, made the afternoon all the more pleasurable. It recalled the experience of visiting some of the chapels and lesser known museums in  Europe, where you are unlikely to encounter big crowds but are blown away nonetheless.

Bartolomeo Manfredi, "Cupid Chastised," 1613, Oil on canvas 69 x 51 3/8 in. (175.3 x 130.6 cm), The Art Institute of Chicago

Cecco del Caravaggio, "The Resurrection," 1619–20 Oil on canvas, 133 1/2 x 78 1/2 in. (339.1 x 199.5 cm), The Art Institute of Chicago

In accordance with this loan, the Art Institute set up a periphery of works that had taken cues from Carravaggio throughout Europe. Works by Rembrandt, Rubens, Zurbaran, and others who had been influenced by the man’s use of chiaroscuro and heightened realism were fairly standard art history lessons, but some of the cooler paintings on display were by  those  of  his immediate followers, such as Bartolomeo Manfredi and Cecco  di  Caravaggio.

Michelangelo Merisi de Caravaggio, "Supper at Emmaus," 1601, Oil on canvas, 141 cm × 196,2 cm, National Gallery, London

His immense artistic influence and infamous biography aside, one of the most striking things to consider when drinking this painting in is that Caravaggio eschewed preparatory studies and painted directly from live models.

There’s a lot of things that draws our eyes into “Supper at Emmaus.” In the frozen, shocked expression of Christ’s onlookers, Caravaggio gives us one of his best renditions of the dramatic climax. He uses subtle visual devices, like the placement of a faint shadow behind Christ’s head to suggest a divine light that we otherwise cannot see, making a biblical legend seem like a contemporary dramatization.

But to think that such ingenuity was all plotted out in one take?  That’s like the painterly equivalent of Jay-Z recording a classic verse off the top of his head. Both thrilling moments where an artist’s spontaneity converge with the clarity of their message.