Boy Peeling Fruit (1592)

One of Caravaggio's earliest works, Boy Peeling Fruit is at first glance a fairly quaint genre painting.  A depiction of simple life: a young boy, fingers tensed, pushes through a piece of fruit with his peeling knife.  His eyes, half closed, focus on the task just enough to avoid slipping the blade and cutting himself.  Initially this holds all the hallmarks of the Baroque style that was in much demand in the late 1500s, that of the common life captured with tremendous detail.  But there exists in his face so much thought, he can't just be considering the fruit, we all think.  What is on his mind?  Here lies the unexpected depth found in all of Caravaggio's paintings: from the innocent early work to the later blood-soaked explorations, we can't help but take a second look.  What can that boy be pondering?


To begin to understand, we must note the details Caravaggio intentionally placed in the painting to differentiate it from other genre works.  First, the boy is so clean.  His hair is cut.  His shirt, though plain, lacks any of the grime we would expect to find on a servant.  The black background, also unusual, focuses down to the boy, who radiates with a strange ethereal light.  If this is truly a literal depiction of simple life, as Caravaggio sold it as, why does the light not illuminate the rest of the room?  How can his hands be so soft?  His skin so perfectly unblemished?  Through these departures from standard fare, Caravaggio alerts us to hidden meanings.

The boy's arms both point directly to the fruit he peels, as does the v of his shirt and the implied line of the table.  His gaze, too, leads us downwards.  And the fruit that is so important, that the boy has chosen to peel, is not like the others.  On the table are pears, peaches, apples.  Perhaps I spy a plum or two as well?  But the fruit in his hand is much more ambiguous.  In his essay "Caravaggio's Fruit," Jules Janick suggests that it is a pair.  Others believe it to be a bergamot (an Italian citrus-fruit somewhat similar to a pair).  My issue with both of these theories is that the fruit's color: dark brown, and the way it glistens, in a sickly, slimy manner.  Ignoring the delicious temptations in front of him (which would not be peeled anyway), the boy has picked up an ambiguous and strange fruit, and cuts into it, all the while his mind on something else.  Though we can't be sure, the painting seems to resolve into a commentary on the choice involved in innocence.