The Blue Hour in Caravaggio

(Picture: Geobia)

(9.2.2023) Would one expect something as idyllic as the rendering of a blue hour in a painter like Caravaggio? A painter, rather known for staging Biblical scenes in dark, claustrophobic and urban settings, full of archaic (or urban?) violence at times? But is there a blue hour in Caravaggio at all? And is a blue hour, a twilight hour, really something rather idyllic, or better: is a blue hour something idyllic for everyone?

Caravaggio did stage his Inspiration of Saint Matthew (as other scenes with Saint Matthew) in the Cappella Contarelli of San Luigi dei Francesi, Rome, a chapel which is lit, as can be seen on the right, largely by a window. Which means that the whole cycle of day and night does also happen inside, passes through that chapel, with this cycle of light and dark interacting with the light (and also with the colors) inside Cappella Contarelli.
The colors of the angel symbolizing, or rather representing – in a hyper-real manner – the inspiration of the saint, are, according to Alain Jaubert (see the Caravaggio episode within the beautiful Palettes series by Jaubert) cool ones, Jaubert names a blue-grey, and opposed to the warm ones, by which the saint is represented. And we may say that even in this painting we might find a subtle reference to the inspiration of a writer being associated with the twilight hour, which, as much later writers have it (Goethe for example), is the most inspiring time of day (or night) for a writer, the hour that seems to stimulate, as all things, at least as to the appearence of these things, may be in change, and observing such change also the mind of a writer might find itself suddenly in motion and change.
Perhaps the blue hour might not be the hour to clarify things, but it may be the time of day (or night) best fit for reflection, for reflections possibly aiming at and leading a writer towards clarification. Perhaps helped by inspiration, in whatever form it may show, and perhaps even helped by angels (or demons) willing to lead a writer’s pen, or at least helping him, nudging him, as the angel seems to be willing to, to find the second word (as the angel is indicating, by his gesture, the number two).

But now, after we have realized that Caravaggio is not merely a painter of violent scenes, but capable to address the subject matter of inspiration in a subtle way, now the other question: is the phenomenon of the blue hour, of the twilight hour, by definition something rather idyllic? Or better: is it something idyllic for everyone? And the answer is no. Because, for example, for writer Witold Gombrowicz, as we can learn from his Diary (New Haven/London 2012, translation by Lillian Vallee), it was not. Gombrowicz did question »our idyllic descriptions of dawn or dust« (p. 322). And somewhat later (p. 327f.) he says, making it clear that dusk can also be described as something rather violent:

»The twilight hour is incredible… there is such an imperceptible and inevitable evaporation of form.… It is preceded by a moment of enormous clarity, as if form were resisting, didn’t want to give in – the clarity of everything is tragic, persistent, even frenzied. Right after the moment when the object becomes itself most concrete, alone and left to itself, without the play of light and shadow in which it luxuriated until now, a more pervasive weakening, evaporation of matter follows; lines and blots join causing a tiring blur; contours put up no resistance; the outlines, in dying, become difficult, incomprehensible; there is a general retreat, withdrawal, a sinking into growing complexity.… Before the actual coming of darkness the shape becomes stronger once more, but not with the power of what we see but with the power of what we know about it – the cry proclaiming its presence is now merely theoretical.… After which there is a mixing of everything, blackness pours out of holes, thickens in space, and matter becomes darkness. Nothing. Night.«

And one does wonder how Caravaggio, if he had known it, would have responded to this description of a dying twilight hour, of darkness, of Nothing, and of Night.

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