Caravaggista! My love. I'm wondering if I can ask your expertise in the Caravaggio dept. I'm not an Art History student, but have found myself, as of recent, pulled to this artist's work, specifically to his David and Goliath paintings, in their various iterations. Can you speak, perhaps, to this painting, and to why Caravaggio was so intensely fascinated with it? xx much love from Toronto!
What a wonderful question! Caravaggio painted three versions of David and Goliath - the first, around 1600 (Prado, Madrid), the second made around 1607 (Kunsthistorisches, Vienna), and the third completed in 1610 (Galleria Borghese, Rome).
David and Goliath was a symbol of authority and the administration of justice, and Caravaggio’s paintings are compelling given that his professional and personal life was often caught between the sacred and profane. Most scholarship focuses on the Borghese painting because of its place in Caravaggio’s oeuvre. Painted in 1610 (some specialists dispute this date), the picture is generally accepted by art historians to be a symbol of Caravaggio’s contrition after killing Ranuccio Tomassoni in May 1606. The ensuing death sentence forced Caravaggio into exile, and the Borghese painting was one of three intended as gifts for Scipione Borghese in hopes of securing a papal pardon. Caravaggio’s model Cecco is David, who presents Goliath’s head – a self-portrait of Caravaggio – to Scipione (and us), with, perhaps, a look of digust or pity. Caravaggio-Goliath seems conscious, aware of his death, despite the separation of his head from his body.
That said, we can read more into the Borghese picture than contrition and pictorial justice. The most compelling alternative interpretation is found in David Stone’s article “Self and Myth in Caravaggio’s David and Goliath” in Caravaggio: Realism, Rebellion, Reception edited by Genevieve Warwick, Newark: University of Delaware Press, 2006: 36-46; illustrations 104-113. You can read it in its entirety on Academia.edu.
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