The titular seven works/acts of mercy are represented in the painting as follows:
Bury the dead In the background, two men carry a dead man (of whom only the feet are visible).
Visit the imprisoned, and feed the hungry On the right, a woman visits an imprisoned deputy and gives him milk from her breast. This image alludes to the classical story of Roman Charity.
Shelter the homeless A pilgrim (third from left, as identified by the shell in his hat) asks an innkeeper (at far left) for shelter.
Clothe the naked St. Martin of Tours, fourth from the left, has torn his robe in half and given it to the naked beggar in the foreground, recalling the saint’s popular legend.
Visit the sick St. Martin greets and comforts the beggar who is a cripple.
Refresh the thirsty Samson (second from the left) drinks water from the jawbone of an ass.
Michelangelo Merisi da Caravaggio was an Italian painter born in Milan, Italy. Forgotten almost immediately after his death in 1610 it was only in the 20th century that his importance to the development of Western art was rediscovered.
The Seven Acts of Mercy (also known as The Seven Works of Mercy) was Caravaggio’s first masterpiece painting since he killed a man and fled to Rome.
Caravaggio took refuge in Naples, in 1606. There he began to work again with his usual, astounding speed. Early in January 1607 he was paid for the immense altarpiece commissioned to him by the Pio Monte di Misericordia (where it may still be seen today). The painting shows the Seven Acts of Mercy. It is very complicated in its organization. Caravaggio actually had to add a series of figures (two angels and the Madonna and Child, the latter painted later) in the upper part of the painting, which make the composition of the picture the most complex, perhaps, in any of his works. Caravaggio did not paint exemplary episodes intended to stir the viewer to religious piety through the illustrative emphasis of gestures and feelings. Rather, he entrusted the educational effectiveness of his works to the evidence of things in themselves, in the conviction that nothing should be added above and beyond what is already contained in the intrinsic eloquence of the various poses.
The seven acts of mercy represented on the painting are the following. On the right appear the (1) burial of the dead and the episode of the so-called Carita Romana (Cimon’s daughter giving her father suck in prison), which contains at once the two charitable acts of (2) visiting prisoners and (3) feeding the hungry. (4) Dressing the naked appears in the foreground, symbolized by St. Martin and the beggar. Next to this scene, the host and St. James of Compostela allude to the (5) offering of hospitality to pilgrims. (6) Relieving the thirsty is represented by Samson drinking from the ox jaw. The youth on the ground behind the beggar of St. Martin may also represent the merciful gesture of (7) caring for the sick.
We readily apprehend the artist’s power of synthesis, which concentrates a conceptual content that is potentially quite dispersive, in the model behavior of a few figures. The large painting was widely copied and studied by seventeenth-century Neapolitan painters, who drew ideas and formal devices from it.
