Regarding the Image of the Pain of Others: Caravaggio, Sontag, Leogrande

Why were Caravaggio’s Sleeping Cupid (1608) and The Seven Works of Mercy (1607) requested for display at a number humanitarian public events? And why did work inspire series photographic journalistic reportages on contemporary migratory phenomena? This article surveys the main circumstances linking pictorial corpus to so-called European migrant crisis. After critical reflection social construction “humanitarian Caravaggio,” focus shifts onto book that is same time investigation phenomena, literary work, theoretical ways looking: La frontiera (2015) by Alessandro Leogrande, which concludes with representation suffering in Martyrdom St. Matthew (1600). By following path connects painting, Susan Sontag’s thought, Leogrande’s writing, what emerges self-critical potentiality comparative approach arts images.