221 – Caravaggio: the witness witnessed

Michelangelo Merisi da Caravaggio, David with the Head of Goliath, 1606-07 or 1609-10. Galleria Borghese, Rome.

I was very lucky to be able to get into the National Gallery before opening time last week, and had the unequalled opportunity to see The Last Caravaggio on my own. In terms of the National Gallery’s ‘small and perfectly formed’ Room 46 exhibitions, this is undoubtedly the smallest – there are two paintings, two books and a letter. Of course, it is a ‘must’ for any lover of Caravaggio’s work, but by 10:30 a small queue had formed. At eleven it had stretched across the landing, and by 12 it continued downstairs and across the Annenberg Court – just so that you know. The exhibition is free, but they can only fit 39 people into the room. I will talk about The Last Caravaggio on Monday, 29 April at 6pm, looking at both of the paintings in the exhibition in detail, explaining the significance of the books and letter, and putting it all into the context of Caravaggio’s life as a whole. The following week, on 6 May, I want to think about another artist who died even younger than Caravaggio, and whose early death has denied him the fame he undoubtedly deserves – even though his masterpiece is, in itself, one of the celebrities of the art world. The talk will explore Carel Fabritius and the Art of Delft – making it clear that this is Not Just The Goldfinch. Thereafter, I will introduce two exhibitions at Tate Modern, which look at the Expressionists (20 May) and Yoko Ono (27 May). As ever, keep your eye on the diary for more information.

I have discussed the story of David and Goliath before, when I looked at Bernini’s sculpture (see 132 – Giant, or Giant Slayer?). In that post I used Caravaggio’s painting as a comparative illustration: both are in the same collection in Rome, although they are in different rooms. I also discussed the story at length when talking about the Pesellino painting, The Story of David and Goliath, as part of the National Gallery’s recent exhibition. But, long story short (as if you didn’t know it), David was a shepherd boy who took up the giant Goliath’s challenge of one-to-one combat to resolve the war between the Israelites and the Philistines. With God on his side, David triumphed, using nothing but a slingshot and a stone, which hit the Giant’s forehead and knocked him dead. The boy didn’t even have a sword – so he took Goliath’s, severed the head, and returned to King Saul in Triumph – the subject of a second painting by Pesellino. Caravaggio depicts a moment just after the climax of the story, with David looking down at the severed head, the sword still in his hand.

Caravaggio’s early works were richly coloured, using widely ranging palettes and a detailed depiction of form and texture. As his all-too-brief career progressed, the palette simplified, the colour drained out and the darkness crept in. There is no implication in the biblical narrative that this story would have happened at night, nor would it make any sense: battles almost inevitably happened during the light of day. How else could you see who you were fighting, or know where to aim? It is so dark here though, that it cannot be anything other than night, which of course adds to the drama of the depiction. However, there is just the vaguest hint that David is not exactly ‘outside’. The top left corner of the painting is cut off by a diagonal that can be read as the dark, olive green flap of a tent, and another piece of fabric hangs almost vertically down the right side of the painting. A strong light shines from the left, almost on a horizontal: the boy’s face is in shadow on our right, the line between light and dark being as vertical as possible given the forms of the facial features. There must be a bright lantern hanging by the ‘door’ of this tent. We can see the taut tendons in the neck, and the clavicles at the top of his sternum, tense as a result of the extended left arm, which is raised and strongly foreshortened: the direction of the light means that the arm is brilliantly illuminated along its full length.

This arm thrusts the severed head towards us, blood pouring down below it, but not in an overly shocking way – it is too dark to cause much concern. Caravaggio brilliantly captures the moment of surprise as the apparently invincible giant realises that he will be defeated by an innocent child, this fleeting thought captured on his face by the sudden, unexpected death, so recent that the eyes are still crystal clear. It is as if he is still alive, still thinking and feeling, the brow crumpled in thought. The small, bloody wound in his forehead caused by the shepherd boy’s stone is hidden by the shadow from a lock of hair. The right eyelid droops, the eye unfocussed and clearly no longer seeing, even if the lively glint in the left eye contradicts our understanding of the situation. The mouth is open – the last breath was a gasp – the lower lip glistens and the peg-like teeth catch the light.

David is dressed unusually – he seems to have taken his left arm out of the sleeve of his shirt and tucked it in into the belt of his tan-coloured britches. Maybe that is some of the sleeve hanging down in front. The rest of the shirt – if that is what it is – is worn over his shadowed right shoulder. The right arm is all but hidden in the profound darkness. He still holds the sword, the point lowered and out of the picture, its angle being parallel to the thrust of the arm – on the surface of the painting, at least, although not in the imagined depth of the space.

The position in which the sword is held is hard to explain, pressed as it is against his thigh, putting pressure on the britches, and inflecting the lines of the folds. The angle of the sword, and its position, right next to the groin, has led to lurid speculation – especially as the britches are not fully fastened: we can see the shirt where it has been tucked in. Almost inevitably with Caravaggio, these speculations are related to the artist’s own sexuality, something I have no particular interest in, if I’m honest, but we might come back to it. However, the sword includes a detail which might give us a better lead concerning Caravaggio’s line of thought. It is inscribed with the letters ‘H.AS O S’, usually interpreted as an abbreviation of Humilitas Occidit Superbiam – meaning ‘humility kills pride’. This is a quotation from one of St Augustine’s commentaries on the Psalms, and the relevant the full passage can be translated thus:

David is as a figure of Christ, just as Goliath is as a figure of the devil. And because David laid Goliath low, Christ is the one who has slain the devil. But what does it mean that Christ is the one who has slain the devil? Humility has slain pride. Since I cite the example of Christ, my brothers, humility is commended to us par excellence. For he has made a path for us through humility. Since through pride we had retreated from God, we were not able to return to him except through humility, and we did not have anyone to hold before ourselves for our imitation.

We will certainly come back to this!

The darkness visible through the shirt tells us that this is certainly a late painting: look at the wonderful freedom with which it is painted. A number of long, rapid, loosely-painted brushstrokes flow diagonally from the shadowed shoulder across the otherwise naked torso. The shirt is thin, judging by the amount it has wrinkled, and yet it does not appear to be translucent. We don’t see the light flesh tones of the chest or stomach through it, but the darkness. The white paint was applied directly onto a dark ground. This technique was first fully explored by Tintoretto in the 16^th century, and is a great time saver for artists painting nocturnal scenes. Rather than working your way down from light to shadow as you would have to on a white background, here you work your way from darkness up to the light. However, the shadowed edges of forms do not need to be painted at all, as we fill them in with our imagination. Here, the shadows caused by the wrinkling of the fine cotton are an absence of overpaint, rather than an application of a darker hue. But then the dark ground seeps through the flesh tones as well. The outline of David’s back – to our right of his body – is defined by what appears to be light reflecting onto the torso at the edge of the shadowed rib cage. But this is artistic license – there is nothing in the painting to explain what the light could be reflecting from. The thinness and transparency of the white paint is a common feature of the late work – a development which reaches unprecedented extremes in The Last Caravaggio – all of which suggests the usual date given for the execution of this painting: about 1610, the year of the artist’s death at the age of 38. However, the Galleria Borghese, in whose collection the painting has resided for over 400 years, now suggests the date given at the top: 1606-07 or 1609-10. To understand why this might be the case, we should question the assumptions we have made about who is looking at whom. But just to point out the difference between a ‘mature’ painting and a ‘late’ one (though how can it be ‘late’ at the age of 38?), here is an earlier version of the same subject in the Kunsthistorisches Museum in Vienna, which they date to ‘around 1600/01’.

So much is similar between the two paintings. Both are nocturnal, with a bright light coming horizontally from the left. The sword is held in David’s right hand, with the head in his left, thrust towards us by the strongly foreshortened arm. The costume is also the same: tan coloured britches and a white shirt tucked in at the waist, hanging over one shoulder, with an arm withdrawn. The head looks surprised, the mouth gapes, and blood pours down in the shadows below the severed neck. Stylistically though they are rather different. In the earlier work the forms are fuller, and more clearly defined. Although it was also painted on a dark ground, the darkness is not nearly so visible through the flesh, or, for that matter, the shirt. In this painting it is more obvious that one of the arms has been taken out from its sleeve – the cuff is clearly visible tied just above David’s right hip. However, in this earlier painting it is the right arm which is bare, which makes more sense: he holds the sword in his right hand, the same hand that would have swung the sling. Freeing this arm from the clothing would have allowed him greater freedom of movement, a greater swing. In the later painting the unclothed left arm associates this freedom of movement with the head, thus bringing the relationship between victor and victim closer. There are a least three other notable differences, quite aside from the format of the painting (landscape in Vienna and portrait in Rome). First is the position of the sword, held nonchalantly over David’s shoulder. This may be a relaxed pose, but it still allows him to swing the blade again. A second difference is in his state of dress: the britches are more obviously gaping. This might be a reference to the biblical account. Saul was worried about the young boy’s ability to defend himself, ‘And Saul armed David with his armour’ (1 Samuel 17:38). However, David had never worn armour – he hadn’t ‘proved’ it, meaning that it was not tried and tested – ‘And David said unto Saul, I cannot go with these; for I have not proved them. And David put them off’ (1 Samuel 17:39). He ‘put off’ the armour – but the bible doesn’t suggest that he ‘put off’ all of his clothes – as the sculptures of Donatello and Michelangelo might suggest. In Caravaggio’s paintings David wears down to earth clothing, over which armour could have been worn. The sloppy garb of the young boy might simply result from the removal of ill-fitting armour, and could even suggest a lack of concern about his appearance in the face of God’s enemy. A final difference between the two paintings is the direction in which the boy is looking. In the earlier version his gaze is directed towards our right, into the shadows, and his expression is contained and in control – potentially proud, perhaps, and, I would say, on the verge of a smile.

The expression of the Galleria Borghese David is strikingly different – and unlike that of any other David that I know. His head is tilted, and the raking light casts most of the face into deep shadow. Rather than the potentially proud and imminently smiling figure, here his look is downcast, his lips pursed, his brow furrowed. There is a sense of deep regret – even sorrow – at what he has had to do. He even seems sad for the death of Goliath. Why should this be? It might help to look again at the face of the giant, and compare it with a portrait of Caravaggio himself, by Ottavio Leoni, which is now in the Biblioteca Marucelliana in Florence.

Although usually dated around 1621, eleven years after Caravaggio died, no one has ever doubted the authenticity of this chalk drawing, presumably copied from an earlier sketch.  It reveals an interesting aspect to the painting: Goliath is a self portrait – suggesting that Caravaggio saw himself as a slain giant. In terms of the subject generally, St Augustine’s interpretation of the story – in Christian terms – that it represents the triumph of Christ over the devil, (or, if we take it more generally, of good over evil), was one which was understood through the ages. But how does this apply to the famous painter? If his is the slain pride, someone must have humility, and that would also be the artist himself, presumably. He could be saying that he has – finally – found the humility to overcome his own pride.

The painting entered the Borghese collection as early as 1613, and records suggest that it was in Naples in 1610. An early biography implies that it was painted for Cardinal Scipio Borghese in 1606, though… However, given the existence of two other Davids by Caravaggio – the one above, in Vienna, and an earlier work in the Prado, in which David crouches over the prostrate body of the giant – it is not entirely clear which, if any, of the paintings the sources refer too: there could have been others which are now lost. However, 1606 was a significant date. It was the year in which Caravaggio murdered Ranuccio Tomassoni, and fled from Rome. After this there was a price on his head, quite literally: a reward for killing him, which in this painting David seem to have done. On leaving Rome his first lengthy stop was in Naples. His guilt at the murder, and his worry that it had potentially ended his own life, could be expressed in the downcast glance of the shepherd boy. From the moment he fled Caravaggio sought pardon from the Pope, Paul V: born Camillo Borghese, he was the uncle of Cardinal Scipio. If not painted during his first stay in Naples, from 1606-07, he might have painted it on his return from 1609-10 – hence the dates the Galleria Borghese gives for the painting. Throughout his flight he continued to ask the Pope for forgiveness, which would allow him to return to Rome. This painting was, in all probability, his way of asserting the fact that he had learnt his lesson: humility had finally conquered his own pride. However, there is another possibility.

It has been suggested that this painting is actually a double self portrait. If Goliath looks older than the man we see in the Leoni portrait, the idea would be that David is a younger version of the same person. This would be poetically beautiful, as we would be seeing the young Caravaggio looking with regret at his future self, although I can’t convince myself that this really is him a second time. However, what I have no doubt about is that one of the witnesses of the Martyrdom of St Lucy – The Last Caravaggio – seen on the right, below, is none other than Michelangelo Merisi da Caravaggio.

However wild and unruly his life, he was a profoundly religious man, and regularly portrayed himself as a witness to the miracles he painted. There are a number of suggestions for the identity of the model for the young David. These include one of Caravaggio’s assistants, a contemporary artist, or the the artists’ ‘obsession of the day’ who did not requite his love (hence the sense of being ‘slain’). And, as I mentioned above, it has also been suggested that it is the young Caravaggio himself. But whoever it was, it is clear the man who portrayed himself so often as a witness is here being witnessed, and that what is seen causes sorrow. He died two months short of his 39th birthday, and as we always do, we inevitably end up wondering what he would he have gone on to do had he lived. Given the development of his work up to this point, it seems hard to avoid the conclusion that all that was left for him was darkness.