The Time of The Seven Acts of Mercy- Caravaggio,Image Narrative and Contemporaneity

The Seven Acts of Mercy is a representative work of Caravaggio’s later artistic career, which is also an important public commission for him to stay in Naples during the escape. In this work, Caravaggio not only depicted Catholic doctrine, but also placed theological events in contemporary urban space. This is to continue and develop his personal painting style, and to highlight the inherent tension relationship embedded in the canvas: it achieved the dialectical unity of multiple time between the past and present in the complex narrative of images. In this way, The Seven Acts of Mercy not only conformed to the typology of religious images and satisfied the sponsorship requirements of employers, but also showed artists’ untimely “contemporaneity” through a kind of “messiah time” and attention to the present movement. It could be said that this painting can be regarded as a microcosm of Caravaggio’s self-image in the 17th century, as well as igniting the power of art and the trajectory of time movement through the eyes of contemporary viewers.