This is the “The Taking of Christ” (Dublin, 1602), a print of which I have on my wall for its commotion of light and color and chaos.
And it’s actually a miniature he painted, he gave it to me for keeping my mouth shut when the Cardinal was visiting. Also for lying about the bruises but really I consented, I was on board with that. So on board..wow. I really need confession. Not just for getting bombed and having hardcore blackout sex with Caravaggio but because I am Catholic and it feels wrong. But I can’t say no to that fucker. He has…many talents.
So we see Caravaggio’s Jesus in full light now as opposed to in the corner where the artist made the event the subject. And we see a fully human Jesus in distress. Everything is happening: despite knowledge of it, he is in pain at being betrayed with a kiss from Judas, once his friend and apostle. He is being abandoned by his fearful and confused Apostles — his best friends. And he’s being pushed and by the soldiers who have come to kill him. Despite being the Messiah he is human and he just came down the hill in Gethsemane after asking the Father to spare him. The submissive position is too vivid to yet be accepting his of his fate. It is all emotions.
Fully human.
Dig this: the unidentified man with dark hair in the back is actually identified: it is Caravaggio who painted himself as a spectator into some of his work. That is his face, a self portrait, holding up a lantern..light and shadow!
What a condescending fucker. He’s holding the lamp up so years later people would write exactly what I just did in their blogs. He is so arrogant. And and fearless and dominant …ugh. See this is why I can’t help myself with him. Last time I woke up on his floor wearing only stockings and laying in my own vomit — which turned out to be his. He let me lie there so he could paint me. Then he set it on fire. We have issues.
Naturally the identity of the man has been kicked around and debated thus:
“Could it be Peter, you think?” .
“Then who is that in The Denial of St. Peter?”
“Maybe it’s Matthew!”
And finally:
“What do we care, we don’t even believe in Jesus!”
because the whole exchange sounded like Jewish rabbis in my head.
But we do see St . John on the side, arms raised in confusion and his presence is legitimate as John was the closest to Jesus and he hung in there for the worst of everything. Yes he blew it along with his brother James and Simon Peter: they fell asleep on Christ when he asked them to stay awake with him . This did not understand all that this was what Jesus was here for and THAT is why we don’t communicate in parables anymore. Also, it was unilaterally decided that Shakespeare was too weird for words so we dropped that too.
But John was the real deal and the only one of the 12 who wrote his story, a gospel. And he wrote it in such a way that it embodies the teaching of his friend Jesus. Love, humility, forgiveness, peace. Kindness. The synoptic authors are Luke, Mark and Matthew as they line up very well and frame the same or similar tale. Time frame does not bear out Saint Matthew as the writer of the first and longest gospel and I can’t remember at the moment what Mark’s deal was. Luke, however, was definitely around to have known an apostle or 2 and probably Peter .
He just knows too many intimate details to have not heard it first hand and his style indicates clearly that Jesus’ resurrection was recent. Luke is the only author of the gospels who writes about Jesus’ mother Mary and about the visitation of the Angel and the Immaculate Conception which is known as the Magnificat. So it speaks again to some kind of intimacy with Jesus’ friends or possibly him. No matter, John is definitely John.
Wait.
Where the hell am I, what the hell is happening? I thought this started out to be about Caravaggio ? I am a literary Amtrak. Can you imagine me at a party with a drink in my hand and a string of disjointed stories flying out of my mouth? Sure you can:
So …the “Taking of Christ” is the beginning of 6 (non sequential) paintings of the Passion where Caravaggio really illuminates Christ , the subject. The focus. The most intense of these were painted at the worst time in his life and it is where he becomes the game changer of the baroque art.
Using his genius with shadow, he brings Christ through physical change and thickness to match his resistance, shock, agony and in death, the body of Jesus is visually as empty. He did it so well that he replicated it in his last (?) painting “The Raising of Lazarus”. Our man shows himself as a front runner in the art of painting dead bodies and getting the composition timeline right. And I do admire that. Commitment of the disgusting variety.
And that just does it for me you know? He is such a badass. And he is a great lay, he really is. Even though he smells all the time he somehow gets me to do depraved things. Like I am a circus monkey rewarded with peanuts. But the peanuts.. he just feeds them to me until I am full. Then he calls me a good monkey and pisses on the floor next to my coat which ends up getting soaked and I storm out half dressed looking for gin because he finished it and passed out. So I took his money, He is gonna kill me. Or someone. He’s gonna kill a guy there’ll be a price on his head he will go on the lamb do his best work while he drinks himself into history. Oh Caravaggio you perverted sonofabitch I have no resistance. To your charm. Charms.
I do not know of too many painters who invested themself in such a thing. Over 100 years later Theodore Gericault ,it is known, actually studied cadavers to see the stages of decomp so that he could shock the world with the truth of what happened in his scale painting “Raft of the Medusa” which is so grotesque you think it can’t get worse until you hear the story behind it. Then you wanna throw up and kill the french.
Which is a drinking game in Germany.
Oh! You know you have to call him “Caravaggio” — or when you see him you can wave “Aggio!” but you can’t call him by his surname because he hates Michelangelo’s guts and refuses to share . I must say though that I have never seen a man pray with such longing and sincerity and it must have been from there that he painted. That and there was a hit out on him. My man. That pig had depth.
This painting, long in the possession of the National Gallery of Ireland, was disputed not long ago by Romans but because there was little evidence to support the claim…and with so many “carravagisti” who reverently mimicked him — this one went the way of Ireland.
So now Italy and Ireland are even and now St. Patrick is our problem (look it up) .They get Caravaggios and we suffer parades until Christ comes back and puts the kibosh on it.
I’m sorry Jesus. I needed the attention. You know how I am…
