Caravaggio: Art, Knighthood, and Malta (review)

The authors Sciberras and Stone claim in the preface to their book on Caravaggio in Malta that it “includes new material and observations.” Building on the 2004–05 catalogue and exhibition Caravaggio, The Final Years, we are teased into anticipation by a stunning claim: “[T]he titanic force of his work signaled Malta as a crucial phase — indeed, the crucial phase — of his late years” (vii–viii). The reader will be informed, or mostly reminded, of the artist’s accomplishments and disasters while on Malta, but whether one learns of something “titanic” may seem unlikely. The work proceeds to deliver less than a fluid integration of different approaches, stylistic, iconographical, and intriguing analysis of relationships between Caravaggio and his patrons who brought him to Malta from “exile” in Naples — the well-known story of his homicidal behavior in Rome and flight from prosecution.

In chapter 1, “Light into Darkness,” David Stone seeks to establish a basis for Caravaggio’s transformations by setting the stage in late sixtenth-century Rome, where the artist rebelled against established tradition yet garnered the protection of powerful patrons who would continue to protect him into his Malta period. Important here is the reminder that the artist forged “a heightened realism and psychological depth unique to late Renaissance art” (4), which convincingly establishes his unique gifts that continue to evolve through his “darker” years in Naples, Malta, and Sicily.

Keith Sciberras’s chapter 2 takes up the details of Caravaggio’s dramatic two-year stay on Malta, paying particular attention to the Knights of Malta, especially Alof de Wignacourt, who effectively recruited Caravaggio to the island and was responsible for making him a knight. It tells of the artist’s journey from Naples to Malta, so fraught with the background tension of Caravaggio’s flight from prosecution, his subsequent knighthood, and the sudden descent into brawling, disgrace, and escape — interesting stuff. Interspersed are discussions of paintings carried out, though the real thrust here is about patronage and the failure of Caravaggio to take advantage of his good fortune.

With chapter 3, David Stone resumes control over Caravaggio’s painting. Especially strong are the passages on the artist’s use of paint, color, and light, and his increasingly sparse, minimalist technique. Strongest are the discussions of Saint Jerome Writing and The Beheading of Saint John the Baptist. And though one might not agree with the characterization of Jerome’s “beautiful contrapposto,” much less its “torsion” as “a metaphor of the spiritual current suddenly pulsing through the saint’s body as he begins to compose,” or with the musical analogies, the “treble highlights” (67), and use of “reddish ground . . . as a kind of basso‘ continuo ’” (67–68), Stone’s sensitivity serves well to stimulate serious aesthetic consideration of the images. Indeed, his talent for description, which he ties to good historical understanding of situation (physical and social), really pays off when dealing with The Beheading. Located in the Oratory where Caravaggio’s defrocking took place and hence symbolizing his defeat — “his difficulty in controlling his violent temper — the Beheading by contrast stands as a memorial to how brilliantly he controlled violence in his art” (93). What follows is poetic, and not to be prematurely disclosed.

The final chapter by Sciberras seems an awkward mix of references to earlier and later works, before and after Malta, causing one to wonder how it all fits the theme of a special look at the importance of Malta. Though it would serve a summary chapter to recall his “powerful style that had taken Rome by storm” (108) and suggest such evolution through Malta to “the astounding dramatization of the Lazarus” (Sicily) (115), the chapter is more a collection of references to many paintings and does not add in any clear manner to the proposed task of the book. Nevertheless, the overall effort of the collaboration is useful...