John Berg
The lower society is full of theaters. In the theater of the lower society, the daily stage is a powerful drama that is close to life. The underclass silently presents its own story. The Italian painter Caravaggio (1571–1610) was a painter of the lower classes and at the same time a brilliant painter of desire.
British art critic John Berger (1926-2017) has published a new book, "Simple as a Photo", which is excerpted from this book.
One night, in bed, you asked me about my favorite painter. I hesitated for a long time, looking for the most unknown but true answer: Caravaggio. I was a little surprised when I answered. There are painters in the world who are more noble and have a broader vision than him, and painters that I admire and admire. But my knee-jerk answer showed that I was closer to Caravaggio and felt more cordial to him.
In my unassuming career as a painter, there are only a few paintings I might want to see again, the ones made in the streets of the Italian port city of Livorno in the late 1940s. At that time the city was experiencing war, devastation and poverty. It was there that I began to learn about the ingenuity of the poor. It was also there that I developed the idea of staying as far away from those in power as possible. As it turns out, this disgust is lifelong.
Portrait of Ottavio Leoni, Caravaggio, 1621 Source: wikipedia
My resonance with Caravaggio began in Livorno. He was the premier realist painter, depicting ordinary people— poor people, trouserless men, rogue proletariat, underclass, underclass, and underworld. In traditional European languages, there is no language (like his paintings) that neither slanders nor dictates the urban poor. That's power.
After Caravaggio, other painters such as Bruville, Ostard, Hogas, Goya, Jurico and Gutuso all depicted the same social environment. But these painters, no matter how great, their works are genre paintings, just to show others how unfortunate these people are or how dangerous they are. But for Caravaggio, he is not presenting a scene, but showing the view itself. He did not portray the lower classes for others, he also incorporated his own observations into them.
In art history books, Caravaggio is listed as a master of innovating chiaroscuro and later the techniques of light and shadow used by Rembrandt and others. From the perspective of art history, his observations can certainly be called an important step in the development of European art. Caravaggio then became a bridge between the art of the counter-Reformation and the art of the emerging bourgeoisie in the Netherlands, creating a new space— a space of contrast between darkness and light. (For artists in Rome and Amsterdam, accusations have become commonplace.) )
Caravaggio was actually a boy named Michelangelo who was born in a village near the city of Bergamo, not far from the residence of one of my Italian woodblock engraver friends. The light and shadow in his mind and eyes have a profound personal meaning, entangled with his desires and survival instincts. It is through this, not through the logic of art history, that his art is associated with lower society.
He used chiaroscuro to dispel daylight, arguing that shadows provided shelter like four walls and roofs. No matter what he painted, where he painted, he only painted indoors. In his painting Restonthe Flightinto Egypt or his beloved John the Baptists, he had to add a landscape to the background. But these landscapes are like carpets or curtains hanging in the yard. He only feels more at home —no, nowhere—only in the "house."
Caravaggio," Rest on the Road to Egypt, 1597, in the Galleria Pamphili in Doria, Rome
The darkness of the painting is filled with candlelight, ripe melons, and wet clothes ready to dry the next day, and this darkness exists in the stairwells, in the corners of the casino, in cheap homes, in sudden encounters. Hope lies not in the darkness that shines, but in the darkness itself. While the shelter provided by darkness is only relative, this chiaroscuro contrast vividly reveals violence, pain, longing, and death. Along with daylight, distance and loneliness are removed, both of which are feared by the people at the bottom.
Those who live precarious and crowded lives develop a fear of open space, which soothes the frustration of the lack of space and privacy. He experienced the same fear.
"The Calling of St. Matthew" depicts five people sitting around a weekday table, telling stories, gossiping, bragging, and counting money. The room was dimly lit. Suddenly, the door was slammed open. When the two men entered, the house was still noisy, and the light entered the house. (One of them, writes the American art critic Berenson, was Jesus, who pushed in the door like a police officer catching a prisoner.) )
Two of Matthew's companions were reluctant to look up, and the other two young companions stared at the stranger curiously and dismissively. Why is he talking crazy? Who was covering him, the thin man who kept talking? Matthew, the tax collector, was cunning and more unreasonable than most of his companions, pointing to himself and asking: Do I have to go? Do I really have to follow you?
Caravaggio's The Call of St. Matthew, 1598-1601, in the Church of Louis the Holy King in Rome
Thousands of times the decision to leave, like this hand of Jesus! This hand reached out to the person who had to make a decision, but the hand was soft and collapsed, making people a little confused. It points the way, but does not give direct encouragement. Matthew would get up and follow the thin stranger out of the room, across the narrow streets, out of the place. He would write the Gospel of Matthew and preach in Ethiopia, the southern Caspian Sea, and Persia, and he might be killed.
Behind the dramatic scene that determines the moment, there is a window at the top of the room that leads to the outside world. In traditional painting, windows are either seen as a light source or as a frame for seeing through the external natural environment or typical events. But this is not the case with the windows in this painting, which are opaque and have no light coming in. We couldn't see anything out the window. Fortunately, we couldn't see anything, because there was definitely danger outside. It's a window that can only bring bad news.
Caravaggio was a heretical painter whose work was rejected or criticized by the Church because of his subject matter, although some of them also defended him. He transformed religious themes into secular tragedies. Some say that when Caravaggio painted The Death of the Virgin, he modeled a drowned prostitute—this is only half the truth—and more importantly, the way the dead woman was placed, the way the poor buried the dead, and the way of mourning was also the style of the poor. As poor, I am still mourning.
Caravaggio,The Death of our Lady, 1601-1606, in the Louvre, Paris
Neither Marinella nor Selinunte had cemeteries, and when someone died, we pulled him to the station and sent him to Castelvetrano. We fishermen gathered together to greet the family: "He is a good man. It was a loss that he was dead, and he could have lived many years. "Then we went to the port for business, but we would keep talking about the dead and not go out fishing for three whole days. Relatives and friends will provide food for at least a week for the mourners. [Quoted from Danielo Dolci, Sicilian Lives (New York: Pantheon Books, 1981), p. 209.] Translated into English by Justin Vitiello. (Author's Note)]
During this period, Mannerist painters created chaotic scenes with numerous figures, but the spirit of expression was very different. Crowds are seen as symbols of disaster — like fire or flood — to express the atmosphere of hell on earth. The viewer is in a special position to see a cosmopolitan theater. Caravaggio, by contrast, has compact images, with only a few people huddled together in tight spaces.
The lower classes are full of theaters, but there are absolutely no grand visuals and have nothing to do with the play of the ruling class. In the theater of the lower society, the daily stage is a powerful drama that is close to life. The ongoing performance will become a reality at any time. There is no protected space and no attention to hierarchical fun. Caravaggio was constantly criticized precisely because he treated everyone equally in his paintings, the work as a whole was full of tension, and lacked proper distance from life.
The underclass silently presents its own story. This is the contradiction between its social atmosphere and the expression of deep needs. It has heroes and villains, honor and shame, and celebrates it through legends, stories, and everyday performances. The daily performances are a bit like a rehearsal of great achievements. They are scenes created by impulse, in which people express themselves to the fullest. Without these "performances," the moral norms and honors of the underclass are in danger of being forgotten, or negative evaluations and condemnations from the surrounding society will spread rapidly.
The survival and pride of the underclass depends on the theater, where everyone is performing and proving themselves in a pompous way. There, however, a person's survival is likely to depend on his low profile or lack of attention. The ensuing sense of urgency creates a special appeal that is eager to express. So, gestures flew everywhere, and the desire of a lifetime could be cast at a glance. This is equivalent to another kind of crowding and density.
Caravaggio was a painter of the lower classes and at the same time a brilliant painter of sexual desire. Painters of the same period, most heterosexual painters, acted like pimps, stripping away their "ideals" for the sake of the viewer. However, Caravaggio's eyes were only fixed on what he wanted.
Desire completely transforms its characteristics. Usually, when sexual desire is awakened, this feeling is a desire to possess. The desire to touch, in a way, is the desire to touch with one's hands. Later, such desires become a desire to be possessed, into self-loss in desire. In these two moments of opposition arises a dialectic of desire; both moments apply to both sexes and are ambiguous. Clearly, the second moment, the desire to lose oneself, is the most frustrating, desperate, and scene that Caravaggio chooses (or is forced) to depict in many of his paintings.
The gestures of his characters—given titular themes—sometimes have ambiguous sexual connotations. A six-year-old child pointed to the corset of the Virgin, whose hand secretly caressed the thigh under his shirt. An angel caressed the back of St. Matthew's hand like a prostitute caressing an elderly customer. The young John the Baptist sandwiched the sheep's front legs between its legs, which looked as if they were a penis.
Almost every touch of Caravaggio's paintings is sexually suggestive. Even when objects of two different materials (fur and skin, rags and hair, metal and blood) come into contact, it becomes a touch behavior. In his paintings, the feathers of Cupid's wingtips resemble lover's hands touching his thighs. Cupid controlled himself, not letting himself tremble. It was his deliberate ambiguity, a lure of half-mockery and half-acknowledgment. I think of the great Greek modern poet Cavafy:
We were in love for a month
And then he left, I think he went to Smyrna.
Went to work there; we never saw each other again.
Those gray eyes—if he were still alive—were no longer beautiful;
That pretty face will eventually grow old.
Oh memory, remember what they used to be.
And, memory, whatever you can salvage from that love
Bring it back tonight if you can.
There is a special facial expression that exists only in Caravaggio's paintings. For example, Judith's facial expression in "Judith Kills Holoflony", the boy's facial expression in "The Boy Bitten by a Lizard", the facial expression of Narcissus gazing at the river, the expression of David when he grabs Goliath's hair ("David holding Goliath's head"). These looks are focused, powerful and vulnerable, resolute and compassionate. But these words are all too formal. It should be said that I have seen similar expressions on the faces of animals – before they mate and before they are killed.
Caravaggio's Judith Beheading Holofoni, 1598-1599, in the National Gallery of Antiquity in Rome
Caravaggio, The Boy Bitten by a Lizard, 1595, in the National Gallery of England
Caravaggio, David with the Head of Goliath, 1605-1606, in the Borghese Gallery in Rome
It would be absurd to describe it in the term "sado-masochistic." It's not just a personal preference. If this expression oscillates between pleasure and pain, passion and reluctance, it is because the sexual experience itself contains these contradictory emotions. Sex is the result of the destruction and separation of the original unity. And, in this world, sex brings only a short-lived consummation compared to other things. It caresses affection to resist the raw roughness.
The faces he painted were illuminated by such a perception, as deep as a wound. They are the faces of the fallen—people with a sincere, dedicated desire that only the fallen know exist.
Losing himself in desire, how did Caravaggio express this by depicting the body? Two young men, half-covered or half-naked. Although young, the body has traces of vicissitudes: stained hands, blessed thighs, worn feet, and a torso (nipples like eyes) that have experienced birth, growth, sweating, wheezing, and insomnia at night. It's not a perfect body. Their bodies are not pure and unblemished, but have weathered the storm.
Caravaggio Narcissus, 1599, in the National Gallery of Antiquity in Rome
This means that people can perceive them; through their skin they can see another world. A longing body is not the destination of dreams, but the starting point. Their appearance itself has the strangest and most carnal implications. Caravaggio, painting them, dreaming of their deep meaning.
As one might expect, there is nothing of value in caravaggio's paintings, only some tools and containers, chairs and tables. There is almost nothing special around the figure, and the body glows in the darkness. Ignore the objective environment, such as the world outside the window. The darkness reveals the body of longing, and this darkness is not in the sense of time such as day or night, but about life on this planet. This body of longing, glowing like a ghost, heralds the world behind the skin, not in a provocative gesture, but through an undisguised sense of truth, calling you away. There is a deeper expression on the character's face than it is seductive, because it contains the recognition of the self, the cruel world, the shelter, the talent of sharing a bed. At this time. here.
"Concise as a Photo" [English] John Berger / Zhu Yujie / Translation The Ideal Republic, Guangxi Normal University Press, April 2021
Editor-in-Charge: Lu Sijia
Proofreader: Ding Xiao