Caravaggio
Caravaggio painted Davide con testa di Golia (David with the head of Goliath) three times, but this version from the Galleria Borghese is the most dramatic and the most iconic. The two other versions, from an earlier date and totally different from this one, are located in the Prado in Madrid and the Gemäldegalerie of the Kunsthistorisches Museum in Vienna. Caravaggio experts almost unanimously agree that the Goliath in this scene is a self-portrait of Caravaggio, and that it is one of the last images he has painted. In the Old Testament book of Samuel, David is the fearless young boy who kills the Philistine giant Goliath with one well-aimed shot from his slingshot. In Caravaggio's painting, David grabs the severed head of Goliath by the hair and holds it out in front of him like a trophy. His stretched-out arm and the sword with which the decapitation was effected, form a perfect quadrangle. Yet Caravaggio's David does not seem proud of his achievement. On the contrary, he looks down on Goliath with a mixture of sadness, regret and compassion. The head of Goliath clearly shows the wound the stone made in his forehead. Blood is dripping from the neck of the severed head that was just separated from the body. The light in his eyes will extinguish at any moment. His open mouth seems to emit a final death rattle. Virtually all modern Caravaggio biographers relate this image to the plight of the painter after the murder of Ranuccio Tomassoni. Caravaggio was a hunted man since that fateful evening of May 28, 1606. In Rome a death sentence had been pronounced against him – a sentence that, in those days, was often performed by beheading. He had been on the run for years: from Rome to Naples, then to Malta, Sicily and back to Naples. He did not stay long anywhere, because he saw danger everywhere. And rightfully so. The death penalty was also a fatwa: any bounty hunter could deliver the head of a sentenced person to the pope. That is where the term 'headhunting' comes from. In Italy, at the time, there were gangs that made a living out of it. Davide con testa di Golia is a clear reference to that situation, albeit an ambiguous one. The painting can be read as the expression of a death wish: Caravaggio/Goliath is tired of being hunted and finally exhaustedly accepts the fate that has been awaiting him for years. With a last dramatic, masterful gesture, the painter welcomes the peace that death will bring. But it is much more likely that this painting was meant to save his skin. Already since his flight from Rome, Caravaggio's high-ranking friends pleaded with the Pope to grant him pardon. The crucial figure in those secret negotiations was Cardinal Scipione Borghese. He was the nephew of the incumbent Pope Paul V and the treasurer and political leader of the papal state. But Borghese was also a great art lover and collector. His phenomenal collection, which for the most part came about through extortion and brutal confiscation, was housed in the Villa Borghese, the current Galleria Borghese. It contains no less than six works by Caravaggio, including this key work. It is presumed that Caravaggio painted this Davide con testa di Golia in Naples, in the last year of his life, after he had heard that the Pope was about to grant his petition. It is not clear whether the canvas was an ultimate attempt to favour Scipione Borghese, or rather a payment for an already made decision. It is however certain that it was intended from the outset for Borghese. By portraying himself as Goliath, Caravaggio identifies himself explicitly with the villain and the loser, not with the heroic victor David. It is both an admission of guilt and a supplication for forgiveness. David shows Goliath compassion. And there is also the inscription in the blade of the sword: H-AS OS, which in most studies on Caravaggio is read as 'humilitas occidit superbiam'. Humility kills pride. In painterly terms, Davide con testa di Golia is considered the most intimate painting that Caravaggio ever made. Quickly painted, with thin layers of paint, but oh so sharp and precise. In terms of construction and scenography, it is perhaps the simplest work in his entire oeuvre – we see only the upper body of David and the facial expressions of David and Goliath emerging from the dark, the darkest possible black that surrounds them – yet it creates such a strong impact. Theatricality that does not stand in the way of emotion, virtuosity that does not diminish emotionality, horror that does not distract from beauty. And also: David who is not portrayed as an apathetic killer but almost as a co-victim. A murderer who expresses remorse. Just like Caravaggio. There are Caravaggio experts who discern in David's features a young version of the painter. This would make this painting a double self-portrait. Peter Robb, the biographer who goes the furthest in relating Caravaggio's work to his life, sees it differently. According to him, Davide con testa di Golia contains a few obvious homoerotic references. The suggestive position of the sword that glides towards David's groin. The half-naked torso of David, a beautiful boy's torso with a transparent white shirt draped on one side. And above all: the true identity of David. Through comparisons with previous paintings in which this figure is depicted, Robb has become convinced that this David is none other than Francesco Boneri, nicknamed Cecco del Caravaggio. Cecco was the boy who modelled for the most daring paintings made during Caravaggio's heyday in Rome, including the only two full frontal nudes in his oeuvre: Amor Victorious (1601) and John the Baptist (1602). Cecco was already mentioned by Caravaggio's first biographers as 'Caravaggio's boy', 'who slept with him.' If this interpretation is correct, then Caravaggio's gift to Scipione Borghese might, aside from being a humble bow, be a last, subtle provocation. Simply because he could not resist.
Caravaggio probably painted Fanciullo morso da un ramarro (Boy bitten by a lizard) shortly after arriving in Rome from Milan. It is a work that he made of his own accord; at the time, he was still looking for customers, clients and patrons. Together with Self-portrait as Bacchus, Boy with a fruit basket and The lute player, it is one of the early works – often combinations of portrait and still life – with which he quickly made his name and fame in Rome. All the elements that characterise his art were already present: an astonishingly accurate brush technique, an original theme choice (or very idiosyncratic interpretations of known themes), a powerful chiaroscuro, and an almost cinematic theatricality that nevertheless seems 'life-like'. The boy who is bitten is probably Mario Minitti. For almost ten years he was Caravaggio's favourite male model, and for five of those ten years they also lived together. Mario is the androgynous figure who infuses works such as The musicians (1595) and The lute player (1596) with homoerotic overtones, and also the fantastic actor who turns Fanciullo morso da un ramarro into an almost modern painting. The scream he utters upon being bitten is almost audible. Mario Minitti broke with Caravaggio after 1600 because he could not cope with the incessant binges and benders and longed for a quieter life. He married, returned to his native Sicily and became a successful commercial painter in Syracuse. There are two fairly identical versions of Fanciullo morso da un ramarro. One is in the National Gallery in London. The version exhibited in Antwerp is rougher and more schematically painted, with harder contrasts, accentuating the boy's startled reaction. It belongs to the Fondazione Longhi collection in Florence, the collection of the legendary Italian art critic Roberto Longhi (1890-1970).
Flagellazione di Cristo (The Flagellation of Christ) is one of the great works of Caravaggio's late oeuvre. After The Seven Works of Mercy for the Pio Monte della Misericordia Church, it was his second important commission in Naples, where he settled in the early autumn of 1606. Barely a year after his flight from Rome, he was already the great star of Naples. Flagellazione was a commission from the ambitious De Franchis family, who wanted to present a monumental altarpiece in its chapel in the San Domenico Maggiore church. Caravaggio did not disappoint. Christ has rarely been depicted in a more imposing and visceral manner. Clothed only in a loincloth, his musculature is that of an athlete, rather than that of a deity. Yet he bears his crown of thorns and his fate with dignity. Pushed, abused and gagged by the three rugged, tawny figures, the executioners of Pilate, in the mighty light that falls from above on his divine body and his pale skin, Christ suffers resignedly, almost turned inward. In 1972, the Flagellazione of the San Domenico Maggiore church was transferred to the Museo di Capodimonte, the magnificent museum on the Capodimonte hill from where one can look out over Naples and its bay. In 1998/1999 it was thoroughly restored. Caravaggio's athlete remains in perfect condition.
Text: Danny Ilegems 2018