Fortune Teller Michelangelo Merisi da Caravaggio (1571-1610)

Description of Caravaggio’s The Fortune Teller (1595)

This painting belongs to the domestic genre and was first mentioned by the artist’s biographers. The canvas depicts a young girl who is a gypsy. A slight smile on her face hides the desire to make a fool of a young man by fortune-telling and telling his future. The hero of the painting comes from a noble family and stares keenly at the pretty girl holding his hand. He seems naïve and interested, waiting with interest for a prediction from the girl. But the young man does not notice that she is about to deceive him.

A surprising detail that is very difficult to notice is the moment of the theft. The gypsy, distracting the boy with her gaze, removes a gold ring from his finger, but he does not see it, not expecting such a trick. The hero of the piece is dressed in a rich dress that speaks of his narcissism. This helps the girl to reveal the mystery of his character and distract him as much as possible from everything that is going on. According to critics, Caravaggio, by painting this picture, wanted to show that plots and events taken from real life can be interesting and carry depth and meaning.

Before creating the painting, the artist invited a young gypsy woman, who had the ability to predict the future, to visit him. He asked her to demonstrate how she could read the hand and tell what was going to happen to a person. The master himself portrayed the person she was to divine to. In this way, he wanted to imbue the moment and experience what was happening as best as possible. Caravaggio’s main goal was to achieve the greatest realism, which is read in the expressions of faces, the behavior of the characters, their clothes and movements. The artist used a sharp contrast of light and shadow, which made his paintings three-dimensional and vivid. His work had a great influence on such artists as Rubens, Velázquez, Rembrandt and others.