around 1600 - after 1652 · Utrecht, Rome, Naples and Sicily

Close flames, sculpted faces and silent nights make Matthias Stom one of the most personal interpreters of European Caravaggio.

Matthias Stom, sometimes called Stomer, was probably born around 1600 in the ancient Netherlands and continued most of his career in Italy. His biography remains fragmentary, but his works place him in Rome, Naples, Sicily and then in northern Italy. He belongs to the generation of Nordic painters fascinated by Caravaggio and his disciples. Stom, however, transforms chiaroscuro into a more intimate experience: the light source often appears in the painting in the form of a candle, torch or brazier, bringing faces together and making hands vibrate. The Ecce Homo of the Rijksmuseum, painted between 1630 and 1650, shows Christ bound and crowned with thorns presented by Pilate and a soldier in torch light. The scene is not lit from the outside; the flame becomes the physical and moral center around which pain, curiosity and responsibility are organized. In the Last Supper at Emmaus, the same device transforms the recognition of Christ into luminous revelation. The Old Woman in Prayer tightens the composition further on the face and hands, while Pilate washing his hands combines a monumental foreground and Christ leads to the cross in the background. Stom thus unites Nordic observation, Italian theater and spirituality of light in scenes where the spectator stands almost at the same table as the characters. The selection "Matthias Stom " notably compares Ecce Homo and The Last Supper at Emmaus. His reading favors color.

In Matthias Stom, the flame is not only used to illuminate: it brings faces together, reveals consciences and transforms the night into an interior scene.