Caravaggio's Secrets

October Books

by Leo Bersani, Ulysse Dutoit

A psychoanalytic reading of the homoerotic messages in the early portraits of Michelangelo Caravaggio explores the artist's attempts to move beyond such relations, his fascination with imaginary secrets, and experiments with a new mode of connectedness in his paintings. Reprint.

Genres: Art, Nonfiction, Queer, History

Paperback

First published January 1, 1998

About the author

Leo Bersani is an American literary theorist and Professor Emeritus of French at the University of California, Berkeley. He also taught at Wellesley College and Rutgers University.

Reviews

[Hanneke · Rating 3 out of 5]

A peculiar biography of Caravaggio. The author's main focus is on Caravaggio's sensuality and in particular whether the scenes of decapitation, which are so prevalent in Caravaggio's work, are the painter's secret desire to annihilate himself by castration. Well, yes, if that's what the author wishes to detect in Caravaggio's work, it is completely legitimate for him to focus his book on that notion but I cannot say I was particularly interested in Freudian theorizing about a person who lived more than four hundred years ago. A quote to illustrate:

"In Goliath’s head, David-Caravaggio has painted his own castration. That is, Caravaggio has symbolized it through his own severed head, thereby making visible, for us, his interpretation of a fantasy of castration. For if decapitation “hides” a castration fantasy, the latter is not a final term: only decapitation gives us the full sense, and even more importantly, the profound but ambiguous appeal, of castration. Only Caravaggio’s head tells us, exactly, what he has lost in sacrificing the phallus. Decapitation is the meaning of castration, for sexuality is originally implanted in the head; the phallus does the bidding of fantasy, sexuality is a cosa mentale. In Caravaggio’s work, the head, as we have seen, is the principal carrier of erotic messages. Here, however, is a head being offered to us much less ambiguously than the head of the Bacchino malato or that of St. John with a ram, but it is also a head that can no longer address us. This is a head without secrets, and therefore without a message; decapitation is Caravaggio’s extreme solution to the human head as a traumatically enigmatic signifier. Nothing is concealed behind those dead eyes, eyes that can no longer provoke us erotically. Or perhaps there is a message in Caravaggio’s severed head, but it can only be one about interpretation. In cutting off his head Caravaggio forestalls a reading of his work which, however, he also invites in many of his paintings."

If you are greatly interested in Caravaggio, it is certainly an interesting book to read.

[Eavan · Rating 1 out of 5]

Like... I'm not the smartest person ever but this book took way too much out of me for such a minimal payout. I really wanted to like it but it was way too obsessed with really outlandish connections all surrounded by thick ass psychoanalytic jargon. If you're looking for queer readings + interpretation this is not it.

[Anthony · Rating 4 out of 5]

a slim volume that presents a psychoanalytic reading of Caravaggio-- less about a question of homosexuality (as the title might imply) and more about an epistemology of gazes, bodies and light-- relies heavily on Laplanche's concept of enigmatic signifiers.

[Alex Poston · Rating 4 out of 5]

Discussion of Caravaggio’s soft boys usually stops with a frustrating argument over Caravaggio’s sexuality. Bersani’s psychoanalytic interpretation was refreshing in that it takes us past obvious homoerotic themes (handled so clumsily in the 20th century) and towards a Freud/Laplanche reading of the enigmatic signifier. However, I was ultimately unclear about the implications of a mode of relationality “focusing on sensual connectivity to space” that Bersani posits as an alternative to a relationality conditioned by enigmatic signifiers. What is the metaphysical justification for Bersani’s alternative mode of relationality? I needed to be convinced of the contours and validity of this system before getting too excited about reading it into Caravaggio. Proust was somewhat helpful in clarifying the idea of sensual connectivity, but something earlier in Bersani’s work would have been helpful in fleshing it out. Still, this book is a fun intellectual exercise and the writing is crisp and clear.

[$am · Rating 4 out of 5]

I'm convinced that most of the people who reviewed this book on this website only read the first chapter or simply had no idea what was going on. Bersani establishes the homoerotic tendencies of Caravaggio's work, but then, somewhat surprisingly, turns away from that discussion (and the identitarian impulse it promotes) and towards the form and aesthetic of the work, paricularly drawing out its relationality and illumination. An extremely compelling and unique approach backed by some wonderful analysis. Although I wasn't huge on the one chapter that he spends mostly talking about Proust instead (but just because idk a lot about Proust honestly).

[Bettie · Rating 2 out of 5]

With the 400th anniversary of his death approaching, the painter Caravaggio is receiving a great deal of attention in Italy and around the world. He was controversial in his own lifetime and a passionate debate rages over his legacy today. Artist Roger Law goes in search of the man behind the myth.

Broadcast on:
BBC Radio 4, 2:45pm Sunday 14th March 2010
Duration:
15 minutes
Available until:
3:02pm Sunday 21st March 2010
Categories:
Factual, Arts, Culture & the Media, Life Stories

[Michael Braithwaite · Rating 4 out of 5]

Wanna know about how Caravaggio was a homo? This may or may not help. But it's been really interesting reading!

[Laura · Rating 3 out of 5]

To mark the 400th anniversary of the death of Caravaggio, Roger Law embarks on a journey to understand this shadowy, dangerous and controversial artist


http://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/b00rd967

[Rebecca · Rating 3 out of 5]

A heavily psychoanalytical reading of Caravaggio's work. Interesting but I'm not wholly convinced!