Every Painter Paints Himself: Self-Portraiture and Myth-Making in the Works of Caravaggio

THE SIR DENIS MAHON ESSAY PRIZE EVERY PAINTER PAINTS HIMSELF: SELF-PORTRAITURE AND MYTH-MAKING IN THE WORKS OF CARAVAGGIO ANNA MURPHY The Sir Denis Mahon Essay Prize was estab- Sir Denis’s endeavours in this respect. The Somewhere between 1615 and 1673, the self-portraits reveal an astute and prop- lished by Sir Denis’ friends and colleagues in prize is open to alumni who are 30 years of age Caravaggio became an archetype. agandistic portrayal of the artist and his 2010 in honour and celebration of his 100th or below when submitting their essay and who Mythologised, Caravaggio lost some of his many talents. It is only by deconstructing birthday. Sir Denis was one of the most dis- have completed their highest qualification humanity but gained a signifying power the popular ‘Caravaggio myth’ surrounding tinguished art historians and collectors of the within the past five years (only unpublished as a morally and artistically bad artist. these works that we can fully explore the 20th century, and a determined campaigner essays are eligible for submission. – Philip Sohm, ‘Caravaggio’s Deaths’1 way in which it has been interwoven with, and philanthropist. Sir Denis died on 24 April and imposed on, his self-portraiture, and, 2011 and it is now his Charitable Trust that The author of the prize-winning submission will Caravaggio is an artist whose reputation more significantly, can begin to reappraise runs the Prize. be invited to present his/her essay and attend precedes him. Over the centuries his life these works and consider potential alter- The Sir Denis Mahon Essay Prize comprises an a reception in honour of Sir Denis. This year’s has been sensationalised, fictionalised, native interpretations and motives behind award of £1,000 for an essay of distinction which prize will be presented at the This year’s prize and – perhaps most importantly – impli- Caravaggio’s very particular self-representa- reflects Sir Denis’ life and interests. Sir Denis’ will be presented at the Pinacoteca at Cento in cated in his dark, dramatic and violent tion. area of prime interest was the Seicento (17th November to commemorate Sir Denis’s birth- artworks, in both pop cultural and art his- Caravaggio certainly has a great person- century) paintings, and in particular the work of day wich was on the 8th November. torical discourses. These links constructed al presence in his works, both explicitly Guercino, Caravaggio and Nicolas Poussin. The Winner of the Sir Denis Mahon Essay between Caravaggio’s personal life and his and implicitly. He is ‘an artist who enjoys Throughout his life and until his very last days, Prize in 2015, which was held at the Nation- art have, as David M. Stone notes, ‘often reminding us he’s there’,5 not through the Sir Denis devoted a substantial amount of his al Gallery of Ireland, was Anna Murphy. Her gone unchallenged’,2 resulting in the no- use of formal self-portraiture (of which we time to help and encourage young students in essay ‘Every painter paints himself: self-portrai- tion that ‘the man and his paintings were find none) but through more performative the study of the art subjects in which he was ture and myth-making in the works of Caravag- mirror images of one another’.3 Caravaggio’s and suggestive means. There are three cat- most interested. The Prize aims to continue gio’ is published in this catalogue. self-portraiture in particular is often used egories of self-portraiture that I identify in of himself into religious group scenes as a to support these claims, further linking his Caravaggio’s oeuvre. The first is what might player or participant. This becomes particu- rebellious, rule-breaking art with his rebel- be loosely deemed ‘technical self-portrai- larly complex when we consider the roles lious, rule-breaking personality, with Simon ture’; that is, Caravaggio’s use of himself as he chooses for himself. The third notion Schama even going so far as to assert that a model, particularly in the early years of of self-portraiture present in Caravaggio’s ‘every appearance he makes [in his paint- his career, in which he draws from the self works, which will not be discussed here ings] is in the guise of sinner’.4 This essay without necessarily representing the self. but is nonetheless worth acknowledging as aims to look at Caravaggio’s self-portraiture Such use of an artist’s own person – even it clearly informs much of the literature on in its many guises afresh, and to consider as object, not subject – is always fraught, which I draw, is the idea that ‘every paint- the ways in which these paintings in par- however, bringing with it its own set of im- er paints himself’; that is, the Renaissance ticular have been manipulated by critics plicit transactions, and it is interesting to truism that all painting is a reflection of and art historians to reinforce what are by note the way in which these early works the artist’s inner psyche and so, regardless now rather typical and often superficial no- self-referentially imply the artist behind of intention, such tenebrous, brutal scenes tions of the artist as dark, violent, supercili- them even in those instances when his own nakedly reveal Caravaggio’s repressed and ous, and mercurial (fig. 1). While there may visage is not openly cited. The second con- troubled mind. be ample evidence to support such read- ception of self-portraiture that I catalogue It is important to note that though there is ings of Caravaggio the man, Caravaggio’s is that of the artist as character in the paint- a limited catalogue of Caravaggio self-por- self-portraiture is not among it; instead, ing: the intentional, deliberate insertion traits, there is nonetheless significant dis- 64 65 1. Artist unknown, Portrait 2. Caravaggio, Bacchus, 3. Caravaggio, The Musicians, of Caravaggio from Bellori’s Lives oil on canvas, 95 x 85 cm, c. 1595, oil on canvas, 92 x 118.5 cm. of the Artists, c. 1672 c. 1597. Florence, Uffizi Gallery New York, Metropolitan Museum of Art agreement among scholars as to which paintings are, or are not, representations of the artist. This is perhaps most prominent in discussions of Caravaggio’s early works, where debates linger about the identities of the men painted in Bacchus (fig. 2),The Musicians (fig. 3), andBoy Bitten by a Lizard (fig. 4), to name but a few. These ‘soft boys’, as they are sometimes known,6 are often thought to be drawn from a fellow artist and friend of Caravaggio, Mario Minniti, rather than from Caravaggio himself.7 However, such accounts give little in the way of justi- fication as to why these paintings are, or are not, bestowed with the status of self-portrait; ultimately, their inclusion in the realm of self-portraiture is dependent on the particular art historical theory being proposed. Such implicit agendas have had – and continue to have – a remarkable effect on the discourse surrounding these works and their assumptive assimilation into, or exclu- sion from, the canon of self-portraiture. With this disclaimer in mind, I wish to turn first to the category of technical self-portraiture, the best exemplar of which is Boy Bitten by a Lizard. This work is one of the most divisive of Caravaggio’s paintings with regard to traditional self-portraiture: some critics, such as Walter Friedlander and Ru- dolf Wittkower, believe Giovanni Baglione’s remark that Caravaggio used a mirror when painting to mean that the resulting works are facsimiles of the artist’s features; oth- ers, such as Roberto Longhi, argue that this same use of a mirror was instead just ‘a means of isolating “pieces” or “blocks” of 66 67 reality, thereby making them available for intense optical investi- provocatively seek to titillate. In fact, it is quite the contrary, as it is like Bacchus would be were he a real person), leering unsettlingly We see, then, that as more and more hypotheses converge, Sick gation’ and was thus used to study, not recreate, the features of essentially a prescriptive vanitas picture with its eroticism belied by at the viewer. While readings like this emphasise the shock value of Bacchus becomes a conglomerate mass of thoughts, theories and the artist.8 Regardless of whether or not this work contains a di- ‘the sourest of morals’.15 What we see, then, is Caravaggio placing such a painting, however, they often overlook the underlying meaning ideas about the painting itself and the artist behind it. Nonetheless, rect transcript of the artist’s appearance, however, Michael Fried himself centrally, subtly emphasising the importance and ubiqui- implied by it, as, like Boy Bitten by a Lizard, this also has a moralising what remains apparent in all is that this painting, in all its layered reminds us that physical resemblance ‘hardly begins to capture the ty of the artist through pose (if not through facial representation), tone, warning against Bacchic or sensual excess in what is ultimately and multifaceted complexity, is a prime example of the many ways complexities of the painting’s relation to its maker’.9 Fried argues while also carefully constructing an image that flaunts drama, the- a rather Christian and pious way. in which Caravaggio’s self-portraiture revolves around emphasising that what we actually have in Boy Bitten by a Lizard is a disguised atricality, and sex appeal even as it simultaneously contains these Other readings of this work, such as David M. Stone’s, focus on the importance and distinction of the artist. Perhaps more perti- ‘analogous mirror-representation of the painter in the act of paint- traits within a strict moral code.

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