The decapitated face of Goliath, that bloody head that David holds by his hair with an expression that is not one of triumph but of sadness, is the face of Caravaggio himself. It is, at the same time, a confession, a request for forgiveness and a self-portrait.
The context of a man on the run
In 1609-1610, Caravaggio had already been on the run for four years, sentenced to death for killing Ranuccio Tomassoni in a fight in Rome. He was living in Naples, trying to articulate a papal pardon through intermediaries, when he painted himself as Goliath, the vanquished giant, the brute force that had found its limit.
Two faces of the same man
Some historians also identify in David's face the young Caravaggio, who he had been before his escape, crime and exile. If this reading is correct, the painting stops being about David and Goliath and becomes about a man who sees himself, at the same time, as the one who destroyed and as the one who was destroyed: the young man and the monster, innocence and guilt, on the same canvas.
A plea for leniency in oil
The painting was sent to Cardinal Scipione Borghese, nephew of Pope Paul V, who had the power to grant the pardon Caravaggio sought. It was, literally, a plea in image: the message was I know what I am, I know what I did, this head you see is mine, do with it what you want. The pardon was granted, but Caravaggio died before reaching Rome to receive it.
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Who is represented on the head of Goliath in Caravaggio's painting?
Caravaggio himself. The artist portrayed himself as a decapitated Goliath, in a painting sent to Cardinal Scipione Borghese, nephew of Pope Paul V, who had the power to grant the papal pardon that Caravaggio sought while he was on the run.
When did Caravaggio paint David with the Head of Goliath?
Around 1609-1610, at the end of his life, when he had been on the run for years for killing Ranuccio Tomassoni in 1606.
Where is the painting David with the Head of Goliath?
In the Galleria Borghese, in Rome, alongside five other works by Caravaggio that make that museum the largest concentration of his paintings in one place.
Continue to the Caravaggio cluster: Who was Caravaggio? · Caravaggio and his works of David · Galleria Borghese and Caravaggio
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