This is a picture of Owain Phyfe, a musician I've posted photos and sketches of over the past few days.
This is Caravaggio's "Supper at Emmaus", the greatest baroque painting of all time, according to my history professor.
These images share a narrative detail-- the scallop shell worn as a symbol of St. James. The shell is visible on Owain's hat, and on the vest of the man at Christ's right in the Caravaggio. Wearing the scallop signals that one is following the Way of St. James to the saint's shrine in Spain. Owain tells this story during some of his performances at the Renaissance Festival, using the detail to ground himself in a time and place outside of the mundane world. It develops his persona, bringing depth to a character that some audiences may only encounter for a moment. Caravaggio uses the shell in a similar way, to give us a little extra information about a character in a painting. Presumably, in Caravaggio's time, the symbol of the shell would be more widely-known, easily recognizable to a viewer. In both cases, the tiny detail of a shell expands upon the world created by an artist through his work.
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