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Caravaggio andViolence
ШШЯШШlohn
Varriano27-1800
Hi ■ H ^^m r-Caravaggios art,like his life, wasfilled with vio-lence. More thana third of thepaintingsattributed
t
o himdepict scenes of violence orindividualscontemplatingdeath. It was witha grisly martyr-dom that helaunched hiscareer as a publicpainter jfi theContarelli chapeland the themereached a climaxin late pictureslike the Borghese
David with theHead of Goliath
. The insertion of self-por- rraits inboth the
Martyrdom of St. Matthew
andthe
David 
[7, 9]suggests hispersonalidentification withsuch subjects. Hisown life, in turn,was no lessmarked by regularoccurrences of social conflict andphysical violence.When hisbiographerGiovanni Baglionecalled attention tohis "quarrelsomeand belligerent"nature, he spokefrom first-handexperience
1
. Thelibel suit that hebrought againstCaravaggio in1603 endedwithoutbloodshed, butthroughout theartist s brief tem-pestuous life, hisreadiness totrade insults fre-quendy led to thedrawing of knivesand the sheddingof blood
2
. Thepolice recordspreserve ampleevidence of hispossession andcarrying of illegalweapons, hiswillingness to usethem againstothers, and hisown occasionalinjury after anunluckyencounter
3
.When he stabbedRanuccio Tomma- soni todeath on May 28,1606 after adisputed tennismatch, he hadreached the peakof both hisartistic andpersonal self-expression. Whilehis earliestbiographers,Carel vanMander, GiulioMancini, andGiovanniBaglione, eachcomment on hisaggressive and317
 
fierytemperament,they do soindependently of their discussion of the
art
heproduced andmake no mentionof the moralclimate of thetimes in which heworked \ G.P.Bellori, whose
Vita
was notpublished until 62years after theartist s death, wasthe first critic tosuggest a linkbetweenCaravaggio'spaintings andpersonality \Loosely applyingthe physiognomictheories of hisday, Bellori beganhis conclusion of the biographywith a discussionof the artists ap-pearance:"Caravaggio sstyle," he wrote,"corresponded tohis physiognomyand appearance;he bad a darkcomplexion anddark eyes, and hiseyebrows and hairwere black; thiscoloring was natu-rally followed inhis paintings." Butthe paintings, likethe paintersswarthyappearance, werefor Bellori only theoutwardmanifestations of deeper disorders."Driven by hisown nature, heretreated [in hismature work] tothe dark stylethat is connectedto his disturbedand contentioustemperament*
6
.For centuries,critics continuedto flailCaravaggio andhis art, finding inhis work, asRuskin put it,"definite signs of evil desire illrepressed"Whilehis insistentrealismdisaffected thosewho favoredmoreconventionalrevelations of thesacred presence,his gracelesspersonality andbad manners of-fended otherswho believed anartists life shouldbe asunblemished ashis pigments.Until the twen-tieth century,dark and lightpictures carriedmoral as well asaesthetic values,and Caravaggiosdark palette wasunderstood as anatural sign of his unseemlynature. With theadvent of Freudian ap-proaches to thesubconscious,Caravaggiosubsequentlybecame an aptsubject for thosewho wished toreunite the workof art with its
 
creator. MarianoPatrizi s
Un pittorecriminale
of 1921 was the firstmonograph to doso, and in the lastquarter centurypsychobiographies by HerwarthRottgen, LaurieSchneider,Charles Lewis,and John andMary Gedo havetaken up thetheme
s
. ViewingCaravaggios artthrough the lensof hisООСсown life, suchstudies havefound the artist tobe "autoscopic"and "reactiverather thancreative" (Patrizi),"phallo-narcissistic* self-destructive, andsadomasochistic"(Rottgen),"haunted by"castrationanxiety"(Schneider),fascinated withfigures who arekilled "becausethey interfered inthe sexualrelationships of apowerful maleauthority'(Lewis), and evenprone to gettinginto troubleduring the monthof October(Gedo) '. Oneproblem withsuchpsychoanalyticreadings, asGom- brich haspointed out, isthat "theinnumerablechains of causation whichultimatelybrought the workinto being"become confusedwith its meaningPictures become"over-determined"while
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