The Moment of Inhale
The Moment of Inhale
Shemaiah Gonzalez
I was on a solo trip to London; my first time out of North America. Everything about the trip was luxurious to me, afternoon tea, a hotel room to myself, but especially the ability to take my time, to create my own agenda, without worrying about the needs of the rest of my family. I spent most of my mornings in museums; taking my time as I moved from room to room, taking notes or photos on my camera whenever something caught my eye.
The painting drew me in from clear across the gallery and I was caught in tunnel vision. I didn’t look at the artwork on the walls to the left or right but pulled towards the painting at the far back of the room, Caravaggio’s The Supper at Emmaus.
Caravaggio’s art is incomplete without our gaze, the painted narrative waits for our eyes to unravel it. He needs us, the viewers, for the mystery in his paintings to be revealed. As his hues and figures set the stage for a narrative already in motion, Caravaggio allows the viewer to interrupt a story in progress, beholding the precise moment that the narrative curves from ordinary to astonishing.
Caravaggio’s The Supper at Emmaus seems to simply depict three men enjoying a meal; the table is spread, a waiter stands at the ready, hands in his waistband, as if to ask if they will be needing anything else. The man at the head of the table begins to bless the meal—but we have caught this luncheon in a moment of inhale. It is the precise moment when these men have the veil removed and see their lunch guest for who he really is—Christ.
At its core, it is a scene of grief—one that echoes my own movement through heartbreak in the Oregon’s Columbia Gorge—the story in this painting is found in the gospel of Luke on the afternoon of the Resurrection. Two of Christ’s disciples are walking from Jerusalem to the small village of Emmaus, a distance of about 7 miles. The past few days had been full of sorrow, as one of their own betrayed them, handing Jesus over to the authorities where he was sentenced to death. He had been publicly killed on Friday; His gored body hung on display for all to see. Frightened and heavy with grief, their community scattered, they begin to discuss what had happened over the last few days. As they converse about these heavy things, they are interrupted by a third man walking alongside them, and yet, “they were kept from recognizing him.”
In my own life, along the way, I had found myself on my own road of unrecognition. This road looked like local bars with low lighting and the darkness of my own mind after a broken engagement—and yet, He joined me in the place of confusion.
Christ approached the men on the road and asked what they were talking about. They responded in their grief and wonder about how the women had found the tomb empty that morning, how they spoke of visions, even claiming that Christ was alive! In response, the man began to unveil the realities of his divine knowledge and explained mysteries from the Torah and even from the beginning of time to them; He spoke of how Moses and the Prophets had foretold concerning the Christ and how he had to “suffer these things to enter his glory.”
Their hearts burned within them—but still, they did not see.
When they reached their destination, the scripture says Christ acted as if he were going on farther. Even the risen Lord likes to tease, to allow his disciples show him the hospitality he had taught them through the years. Of course, they invite him to share in their meal. It isn’t until the moment that Christ blesses the food—the intimate act they had shared together so many times—that “their eyes were opened and they recognized him.”
It is this flash of recognition that Caravaggio so powerfully captures.
At this revelation, the disciple on the left grasps his chair to push back with such intensity, his knuckles are white and he has ripped his jacket at the elbow—we can almost hear the scraping of the chair legs against the floor as the fruit bowl wobbles precariously, nearly falling off the table. The disciple on the right flings his arms open with incredulity, as if to shout, “What? It’s YOU!” Meanwhile, Caravaggio’s Christ—He is unmoved, unchanged by the reactions of the men around him. He exudes peace.
Then He was gone.
Caravaggio draws the viewer into the narrative in the ethereal quality in which he paints his Christ. He does not identify Christ with a halo, and yet, we do not confuse this scene with an ordinary event. Even in the naturalistic style with which Caravaggio depicts this scene, there is a profundity in the way Christ is portrayed and we understand it is a deeply spiritual moment—we understand that this is Christ.
The composition of the painting, writes Lorenzo Pericolo, transcends “the limits of [our] senses so that we can perceive, imagine or contemplate the divine even though we can in no way actually see it.” Caravaggio accomplishes this first by giving homage to the history of iconographic composition. Christ is seated in the center; our eyes are drawn to him, his presence commanding yet still, just as he was positioned in DaVinci’s infamous Last Supper, as well as the more recent rendition of Titian’s Last Supper. The eyes of all other players in the painting are on Christ. As our eyes rest upon him, we complete the circle.
I, too, have walked along side Christ without knowing.
In my mid 20’s after a broken engagement, I moved alone to Portland, Oregon to start fresh. My days were filled at a dead-end job and my evenings were spent drinking as many free beers I could entice. On the weekends I took long solo hikes in the Columbia Gorge. I was so numb; I couldn’t feel my own grief.
The silence of the forest began to reveal things to me, until my inner dialogue became loud enough to recognize as prayers. These prayers were full of sorrow; for my lost relationship and the future I thought was mine. Prayers mingled with the sweet fragrance of the forest and rushing sound of waterfalls until I began to hear whispers of hope. I then understood the relationship would not have been the best for me. God revealed a better path. In that moment I felt God so close I swore I felt His breath.
And then He was gone.
Caravaggio, known as one of the fathers of chiaroscuro—the use of dramatic contrast between light and dark—uses the technique to full capacity in The Supper at Emmaus. The scene seems to be lit from above as if God the Father himself is present, illuminating a spotlight on his Son. Caravaggio’s lighting is so dramatic, that the shadows are not like shadows you would find in nature. Although lit from above, Christ’s shadow falls behind him. The lighting makes evident both the visible and invisible God. Without this lighting, so charged with symbolic meaning, the painting would lose some of its sense of mystical depth.
The modern artist David Hockney wondered how Caravaggio was able to make his paintings so life-like. His theory is that Caravaggio projected images of his models straight onto the canvas. He would have set them up in a brightly lit space, while Caravaggio worked in a dark area behind a screen. The artist then projected the models through a tiny hole in the screen. The image would have been upside down but Caravaggio could outline the model quickly before they moved or needed a break.
Caravaggio’s mysteries, like most, are rarely resolved. His work tells stories deeper than our first glance. His work is an invitation to become part of the story and make it our own.
Shemaiah Gonzalez
Writer & MFA Student
Shemaiah has been published in Image Journal, Ruminate, Barren, Fathom, U.S. Catholic, and America Magazine among others.
Photography by Clay Banks