More Violent Art

Words really fail me here.  Caravaggio was undoubtly a painter of considerable talent and skill.  As a man he was about a flawed as they come.  What does one say about a guy who painted with extreme technical merit, but couldn’t stop his miserable self from getting to bar row after bar row?  I mean, we are talking about a man that once started a tavern fight over artichokes!!  Apparently it had something to do with how they were or were not cooked.  Butter or olive oil?

Of course the paintings are not without violence—actually many are filled with out and out horror.  Take Judith Beheading Holofernes for example,  this is more horrifying an image than anything one is likely to see in a horror movie (well except maybe those Saw movies).  And why, pray tell, does Saint Jerome have half of a human skull on his writing desk?  And then there is Beheading of Saint John the Baptist.  By the time you make your way to David with the Head of Goliath, and Goliath’s severed head is the image of Caravaggio himself—well what can one possibly say?  All this beheading, while it was the style of the day--it gets a bit mind numbing.  Caravaggio’s style of rendering all this decapitation lends to the violence.  It is stylized, but it is also quite detailed and appears almost photographic in some cases.  In Judith Beheading Holofernes in particular Holofernes looks almost real, it is only the image of Judith, with her very un-Semitic face bearing the weirdest expression for someone who is sawing someone’s head off, that brings the viewer back to the reality that this is a painting.  But one has to work hard to find Judith—tearing the eyes away from Holofernes is not an easy task.  It’s like slowing down to see a car accident.

THAT'S A LOT HEADS!

Most of Caravaggio’s subject matter was religious (Christian) in nature.  Even pieces that are assigned as “secular,” such as Amor Vincit Omnia, have a religious nature to them; in the case Amor, a pagan deity—that of Cupid—it depicted in all his “glorious” birthday suit!  But most of these religious (Catholic) images contain some form of violence.  Hell, even his Basket of Fruit is not without a profound sense of death and decay!

Still in trying to write something about Caravaggio, his violent personal character, not his painted decapitations, is what screams the loudest.  When you have a man that starts brawls over food, you almost got a parody of violence.  That Caravaggio had a  pretty bad reputation for starting fights in public during 16^th century Italy, when this type of behavior was fairly  commonplace, really speaks for itself.    There are surviving police and trial records that fill small books in just about every place that he set foot in. I am almost reminded of John Cleese’s character in Monty Python and the Holy Grail, especially his rampage through the wedding. 

A Violent Painting by A Violent Man

Toward the end of his life Caravaggio killed a young man named Ranuccio Tomassoni.  It is thought that he did this by accident, but it was a violent turning point in his life.  Caravaggio was a brilliant painter, so though he had gone to trial many times during his tumultuous life, he was mostly protected by his wealthy patrons, and received on slaps on the hand, so to speak,  After the murder though, no sure aide was offered; when he killed Tomassoni it was just too extreme for any wealthy patron to stick their neck out for him (pun intended).  After this event, he fled to Naples a wanted  criminal, but only stayed there a few months.  From there is went to Malta, on what appears to be a belief that the Grand Master of the order of the Knights of Malta (a chapter of Hospitilers) would help him secure a pardon for Tommassoni’s death.  Things didn’t exactly turn out that way.  In 1608 he was again under arrest and in prison.  For years the circumstances surrounding this arrest were unclear, but recently discovered documents clear up why he found himself in jail yet again....yes, it was another brawl!  Apparently he started a fight that ended up with a door to a home being torn down and a Knight seriously wounded.  He managed to escape jail and flee, but the order expelled his membership in December, noting that he was “a foul and rotten member.”

Here's the Grand Master with His Page

He then made his foul way to Sicily and then back to Naples.  By 1610 he was making his way back to Rome to receive a pardon (which he vainly thought was sure thing, history tells us, however, that it was not).  He never made it.  It seems that he died of fever in Porto Ercole.  As of last year, remains from the local churchyard were being carbon dated and the DNA examined.  That investigation is on-going; with results expected this year. 

 Schama deals quite deftly with his time out of Rome.  He depicts his death as miserable and wanting—spot on!  Caravaggio’s violent life left behind strangely beautiful and nauseatingly detailed paintings that grab your gaze and holds it captive.  He seems a contradiction on the surface—dig a bit deeper and it can be seen violence inspired his art as much as it ruled his personal life.