Psychoanalysis – Exploring the Mind of the Art Works

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Psychoanalysis also isolates artworks from their contextual, biographical determinants and essentially their real meaning. The beheading at the simplest separates the sexual (the body) from the sensual (the head). In Caravaggio’s works, the decapitation draws attention to only the head, “the organ of consciousness” to explore the paradoxical “regime of desire” in which the body’s absence reinforces its existence (Bersani, Dutoit 88). Interpreting the head removal as the metaphorical castration, one could study Caravaggio’s “hysterical psyche” through his paintings. However, one may ignore his interest in the simplistic figural composition (1-2 central figures), textures and the use of spotlight typical of the Baroque art (Stella 90). An iconographic analysis of the head as Caravaggio’s primary visual object emphasizes the dynamics of space that extends even in confined darkness and within the picture frame. Psychoanalysis alone also overlooks certain the artist’s self-identification traits. Swords for instance represent Caravaggio iconographically; he was often caught possessing a sword in public, which for him was an act of pride for his aristocratic status (Varriano 320). Additionally, Caravaggio preferred swords to guillotines and hanging, the more commonly used seventeenth-century public execution techniques, to accurately portray the sacred narratives by Christian conventions and, more importantly, to identify himself in his paintings (321, 327). Psychoanalysis thus excludes possible contextual and biographical interpretations in understanding art history.

Psychoanalysis at worst risks misconstruing the meaning if the subject matter is seldom relevant to the artist’s past. When it comes to Caravaggio’s particular curiosity in the male body, psychoanalysis falls short in its elucidation. Bacchino Malato (“sick Bacchus”), centralizing a male androgynous figure, connects sensually with the viewers through Caravaggio’s trace of seductiveness in Bacchus’s face and body. To the ordinary eye, the painting provokes a homoerotic profile: a male figure with exposed muscular shoulders, sensual opened lips and an alluring smile. Caravaggio essentially turns Bacchus into an enigmatic visual object of scrutiny, for little about his seductive posture is made explicit. A psychoanalytic reading would label Caravaggio homosexual, for which his intimate relationship with commissioner Cardinal del Monte or a lawsuit the artist Giovanni Baglione charged against Caravaggio for libel might substantiate (Bersani, Dutoit 10). Yet, how Caravaggio’s personal life impacts his stylistic choice until now remains speculative. His alleged homosexual identity not only underlines the modern prejudice against homosexuality but also underappreciates Baroque’s explicit rendering of same-sex love (10). At this juncture, what determines Caravaggio’s psyche of art stays undetermined, given countless factors could affect his artistic insight (3). In contrast, a formal analysis of Bacchino Malato lucidly clarifies eroticism’s “unfathomable nature” through bodily features and reveals Caravaggio’s pictorial style (6). Presenting a man with effeminate features deepens his fascination with the body, the sensual signifier, and challenges the psychoanalyst’s “invasive gaze” classifying Caravaggio as an advocate for erotic homosexuality (13). Psychoanalysis, from this standpoint, may have unfairly generalized about an artist from his past and artworks.

Artists unconsciously define themselves through symbols and motifs. Psychoanalysis alone may attribute Caravaggio’s motif of beheading and homosexual impulses to his past, but along with other methodologies deconstructs Caravaggio’s selective staging to immortalize violence and homosexuality. Although psychoanalysis misconceives the head and the body as objects of desire, viewers should not confuse “pictorial norms” in Caravaggio’s life with his “pictorial will” and understand art only for its visual impacts.

Bibliography

Adams, Laurie. The Methodologies or Art, An Introduction. 2nd ed. Philadelphia: Westview Press, 2010. Print.

Bersani, Leo, Dutoit, Ulysse. Caravaggio’s Secrets. Massachusetts: MIT Press, 1998. Print.

Varriano, John. “Carravaggio and Violence.” Storia dell’arte 97 (1999) : 317-22. Print.