Caravaggio is the great painter of 16th century Rome. Known for his troublesome behavior, used to paint his scenes live, directly on the canvas, taking inspiration from everyday scenes he experiences. A fight in the pub or a gypsy was an inspiration for religious paintings admired till today. One of his early paintings - 'Boy bitten by a lizard” is not a religious scene though. It’s a study of human emotion and experience. Painter uses light and shadow in an iconic way to depict the dramatic atmosphere present in all of his paintings.
Boy bitten by a lizard is intriguing because the subject of the painting is hidden from us, hiding on the dark side of the painting, instead, what the painter points our direction towards is the face of the boy, the visible fear and surprise mixed with disgust that he experiences after seeing what had bitten him on the tip of the finger. Painter achieves this through the game of light and shadow which is very characteristic for him and was the beginning of the new stylization in the artistic world. The paintings of Caravaggio have the characteristic, hard, point spotlight that clearly divides the subject into its light and shadow planes and creates a dramatic atmosphere. This division is highlighted by the usage of big, abstract light and shadow shapes that we can notice while squinting at the artwork. That helps to create clear and contrasting three-dimensional form of the subject. Painter doesn’t focus on the background that is either neutral or black, that is used in order to draw our attention to the subject, and in this particular case, its facial expression. Actually, the first thing that we see when looking at the painting is the face, arm, and hand, those elements are placed in the light, contrasting part of the painting and separated from the rest of the scene. We can say that the composition of the painting touches on two separate subjects at the same time as the one subject is the lit half of the face and arm and the second is the still life, on the first sight, hidden on the shadow side. Only the glass is the point that stands out from their dark area. Yet, as we slowly start to explore the painting we realize more and more details of it, and we finally find the reason for all that drama - a little lizard biting a boy’s finger. Another clear compositional choice made by the artist was the tight, claustrophobic placement of the objects that nearly fit into the frames of the painting. It almost feels like the boy due to his dramatic experience can blow up the frame of the artwork.
The usage of lighting and composition poses the impression as if the goal of Caravaggio was not to show the reason for the emotion that we’re witnessing but rather point to the emotion itself and show its importance for the painting. The whole composition is centered around the face of the subject as the compositional guidelines can be drawn around it. This artwork is a great study of facial expression and emotions experienced by the little boy. The subject chosen for the artwork almost feels like some kind of caricature, the way to present boy's emotions in a humorous, yet understanding way. The scene is painted in a drastically realistic, exact, and detailed way. The dramatic lighting and composition seem to be too much for such a trivial scene yet when we think about this, for this young man, this lizard might have been the scariest thing he’s ever seen in his life.
The way Caravaggio painted was innovative and brave in his times. His stylization is commonly recognized and very characteristic of the author. For him, lighting was one of the most important tools in guiding viewers' attention and creating the composition. It was also essential for emphasizing the dramatic and clear message. The characteristic way of lighting creates a lot of contrast in his scenes was the inspiration for many after him to follow in his footsteps in conveying the message through artistic language.
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