《七仁慈》是卡拉瓦乔艺术生涯后期的代表作品, 亦是其逃亡路上留在那不勒斯的重要公共委托, 在作品之中, 卡拉瓦乔既描绘出天主教的教义, 也将神学事件置于当代的城市空间, 以此延续并发展了个人的绘画风格, 并彰显出寓于画布的内在张力关系: 它在复杂的图像叙事中实现了多重时间在过去与现在之间的辩证统一。这样, 《七仁慈》便奇特地既符合了宗教图像的类型学, 满足了雇主的赞助要求, 也通过一种“弥赛亚时间”与对于此刻的关注, 展现出艺术家不合时宜的“当代性”, 可以说, 这幅画作既可作为十七世纪的当代人卡拉瓦乔自我图像的缩影, 也经由当代观者的目光引燃了艺术的力量与时间运动的轨迹。

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.