My Kid Could Paint That

While we read the Decameron, fourth day-second story, in class, I could not help but remember this painting by Caravaggio. It wasn’t only because both had a beheading in them, but because in Lisabetta’s agony, I remembered the troubled look of David as he held the beheaded Goliath, in Caravaggio’s likeness. While Caravaggio’s face could not compare to how I imagined Lorenzo’s, I could not help but to imagine this painting as Lisabetta pulled her dead lover’s head out of his unmarked grave. The amount of detail Caravaggio put into David’s slightly feminine face made me feel a similar feeling of agony as well as relief. Similar to the painting, when Lisabetta finds Lorenzo’s body, she feels a sense of agony (because her lover is dead), but she also feels a sense of relief (we can presume) because her vision proved to be true, thus she was not crazy. Instead, Lorenzo actually did come to her in her sleep, and tell her the location of the body. If she had gone to the spot and not found a body, she would have cried in agony and bought a ticket into a medieval mental hospital.

I commend Lisabetta’s and David’s bravery in the situations they were in. David convinced King Saul to let him go face to face with a seven-foot Goliath with nothing but a sling shot that hurled stones, and a shepherd’s staff. David emerged victorious, proving King Saul and everybody watching the “Lord almighty is the only weapon one needs.” Lisabetta, meanwhile, not only stayed calm while her dead lover came and spoke to her in her sleep, but she also had the bravery to go find said lover, and cut his head off, keeping it in a jar long enough to grow a basil plant in the same jar. Although they do not share the same challenge, they certainly share a courageousness to overcome those who defy them.

David must have felt pretty lonely staring down Goliath with no one to back him up. David was just a young boy. Goliath was a mountain of a man, a head taller than any of the Israelites, and a fearsome fighter. Each day, he would venture out from Philistine lines to challenge any Israelite who would dare face him to a battle to the death. Each day, for 40 days, no man would dare risk his life. Then one day, David, the youngest of 7 brothers, took matters into his own hands and challenged Goliath to a duel. To this duel David brought only his sling and five stones from a nearby creek. He managed to strike Goliath in the head—or, if a modern translation is to be believed, the knee—and bring him to the ground. He then beheaded him and took his sword.

The moment that Caravaggio chooses to show here depicts two kinds of isolation—David’s in victory and Goliath’s in defeat. The battle for David represents an ascension of sorts, as it is this moment that shows that David is the rightful king of Israel. He stands alone as the only man brave enough to stand down the giant. For the deceased, the tortured expression on his face says it all. Additionally, Caravaggio’s rather personal touch adds a third dimension of isolation to this painting. The head is Caravaggio’s own. Goliath’s tormented expression parallels Caravaggio’s attitude at the time, as he was exiled and seeking a pardon and repatriation by Cardinal Borghese. David with the Head of Goliath, along with two other paintings, was created as a part-apology, part-bribe to convince Borghese to let him back into Rome. Tragically, he died on a ship on his way back to his home city, but his testament to pain and loss remains.