Appropriately titled “The Taking of the
Christ,” this painting represents the mystery of the artist
Caravaggio and the way he has captivated even the most contemporary
of audiences; this is noted particularly by the fact that it went
missing some centuries ago and has only recently been rediscovered
with great enthusiasm and debate. The urge to find the hidden
treasures that Caravaggio has left behind is certainly a
wide-reaching result of his talent. Although little was known about
his personal life—including his death—his paintings have revealed
the desires and morbid fascination within society's heart. His images
have been at the center of controversy during his time and during
contemporary times as well. As a known murderer and a convicted
felon, his life certainly reflected the violence and sensuality
inherent in his work. Caravaggio's life is peppered with violent
outbreaks, altercations with the law, and a strong willingness to
subvert the accepted ideals of society, all of which directly
influenced his art style.
Born in 1571, Michelangelo
Merisi da Caravaggio was
immediately thrust into a perilous world. Just a week after his
birth, a battle broke out and Turkish invaders were driven out of
Christendom with devastating slaughter on both sides. When he was
just six years old, the bubonic plague was responsible for the death
of nearly every man in his family, including his father. He grew up
with a disrespectful and aggressive attitude. He roamed the streets
in search of trouble, living by the motto nec
spe, nec metu, often translated as
“without hope, without fear.” He
was frequently accused of being a heretic, as he went about
questioning the validity of Christianity. There is one story in
particular that describes Caravaggio refusing holy water on the
grounds that it was only good for venial sins. He attested that his
sins were all mortal.1
It was this brave thinking that set him apart from his
contemporaries, and it was this rebellious desire that gives his work
the tension that unnerves its audiences.
The art that
was being produced during Caravaggio's lifetime may seem contrived in
contrast to Caravaggio's works. As one of the foundational figures of
Baroque, Caravaggio was learning his craft in the midst of Mannerism,
a style classified by “spatial incongruity and excessive elongation
of the human figure”2.
Additionally, Mannerism is a style dedicated to harmony and the
naturalism established by artists such as Leonardo da Vinci and
Raphael. However, Caravaggio quickly emerged as a unique painter and
found a home in a newly developing movement called Baroque. Indeed,
it would seem that Caravaggio was caught “between an increasingly
degenerate Mannerism and the sumptuosity of nascent Baroque”3.
Baroque is a style that utilizes exaggerated
motion and extreme lighting techniques to create tension and drama.
Unlike their predecessors, Baroque artists chose a decisive
moment—the height of action—to portray. Caravaggio, in
particular, often utilized shallow theatrical space. This technique
pushed the actions of the image into the viewer's personal space. Art
during this time took a sharp turn from the rational, balanced craft
of the Renaissance. Its purpose was not to inform, but to excite
emotion: to put the audience in the same emotional context as the
figures that are portrayed so elegantly on the canvas. The stories
take place in the space and time of the viewer and such a brash
invasion is what captivates audiences still. Even more unusual was
the turn away from iconography. Details in a Baroque painting are
simple and easy to understand. The speed with which a viewer can read
and understand the implications of the figures in such a painting
leaves more room for the raw, emotional tension to build, as it
becomes the most prevalent thing to gain from the experience.
Nevertheless, Baroque artists certainly
approached their pieces with the same practiced technique of painters
before them. Preliminary studies and sketches were standard. However,
Caravaggio preferred to avoid sketches and go straight to the canvas,
often carving his drawings in wet oil paint with the other end of a
brush. His unwillingness to plan, to contemplate fully his choices,
leads to a freshness of his figures or a barely discernible
distortion: he has not toiled endlessly on the perfect equation of
the movement and so it appears, spontaneous and loose, as a
consequence of its context. The technique and the process mimics the
tension of the subject matter and only serves to enhance it for the
viewer.
This technique
may have possibly derived from Caravaggio's constant, necessary
travels. He was one of those rare painters who were famous during
their lifetime, but it was his altercations with the law that
inflated his name. He was known as a murderer and sentenced to death
in Rome. He fled and was forced to live on the run, painting with the
ever persistent threat of capture quickening his brush strokes. He
was pursued by enemies and suffered from much grief and torment
during this time. As famed Caravaggio expert, Sir Denis Mahon,
believed, “studying the work of an artist […] could penetrate the
depths of that man's mind”.4
His paintings reveal a profound self-knowledge which can best be seen
in “David With the Head of Goliath.” It is in this painting that
we see a somber David dangling the dark, bleeding, severed head of
Goliath, who bears an unmistakable resemblance to the artist. It was
painted just after he was sentenced to death for murder and his
choice to portray himself as a slain villain is certainly
representative of his self-awareness. The painting is an admission
that he understood, and accepted, the ramifications of his actions,
but he was overcome with a sense of self-preservation that outweighed
his guilt. He acknowledges the duality of humanity and, through his
actions, does not attempt to suppress either side.
Indeed,
Caravaggio relies on opposites just as much in his painting technique
as he does within his life. From the play between light and dark, to
the juxtaposition of religious scenes with immoral or contradictory
components, Caravaggio's art was not always supported. “Death of a
Virgin,” for example, was commissioned by a
Vatican law official for his family chapel, but was refused by the
clergy who claimed it unworthy. Not only was it brutal and
unforgivably realistic, the model for Madonna was a well-known
prostitute, with which Caravaggio had a romantic attachment. The
title seems significant when paired with this fact, for it
figuratively equates to the model's loss of innocence due to her
profession, irregardless of pretense. It was a secretly ironic
statement, perhaps, that soon became widely-known when the
courtesan's face was recognized easily.
Additionally, Caravaggio's association with
prostitutes is only one example of the sexual nature, of his
paintings. His only known assistant was a 12 year-old boy named
Cecco, who can be seen growing up through the progression of
Caravaggio's paintings. He is seen in multiple paintings, as a
youthful laughing boy to a somber David, clutching Goliath's bleeding
head. However in “Boy with a Basket of Fruit,” he becomes the
epitome of opposites: his pose is enticingly provocative but as he
withdraws his basket of fruit, he remains disinterested. His pose
takes “the otherwise neutral unreadability of the eye into a
willful reticence, as if we were being solicited by a desire
determined to remain hidden”5.
The tension created by the figure's reluctance could be
representative of Caravaggio's tension within himself. The same
self-knowledge that can be viewed in “David With the Head of
Goliath” is just as prevalent in this painting, only the tone of it
is not so guilt-ridden. Although Caravaggio acknowledges his
perversity and attempts to hide it, he does not apologize—and
perhaps he is simply expressing his love in the only way he knows
how.
The mysterious nature of Caravaggio is further
elevated by the circumstances surrounding his death. As an elusive
figure during his time, it has taken researchers and archaeologists
centuries to unwrap the mystery and track down his remains. Further
still, it has taken just as long to locate his death certificate. His
final resting place was never recorded and with the lack of
information, theories arose, ranging from malaria, to syphilis, to
sunstroke, or even to a plot orchestrated by the Knights of Malta
with the pope's support.
In conclusion, with the persistence of
opposition in Caravaggio's paintings, there sometimes seems as if
there are two people within his body: “One vain, uncontrollably
aggressive, ever ready to start violent escapades; the other an
authentic artist, scorning publicity and the aesthetically 'in'”.6
Torn between religion and aggression, Caravaggio lived an unstable
life. Beginning with the loss of family members after an outbreak of
the bubonic plague, he was thrust into a troubled world of
uncertainty and anger, but these emotions propelled him to paint. His
paintings create a tension within the viewer that resonates to this
day.
* * *
Endnotes
3Spurling, Hilary. "The Criminal Genius of Caravaggio." NY Times. The Criminal Genius of Caravaggio.
5Bersani, Leo, & Dutoit, Ulysse. "Caravaggio's Secrets." NY Times. http://www.nytimes.com/books/first/b/bersani-caravaggio.html.
6Sohm, Philip. 2002. "Caravaggio's Deaths." The Art Bulletin 84, no. 3: 449-68. Art Full Text, WilsonWeb (accessed September 30, 2011).
* * *
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