Caravaggio\'s Tongue

Xl l , t

(a ,oa a)

SOURCE: Notes in the History of Art, 21, 4 (2002) © Norman E. Land CARAVAGGIO'S TONGUE Norman E. Land

Stories or anecdotestold of Renarssance and Baroqueartistsby early biographersare often overlookedbecausethey usually do not help art historiansascertainthe actual in which an artistlived or the circumstances events bearing upon the making of his works. In truth, anecdotesshould not be considered"documents"in the strict sense, for they are used rhetorically and poetically by most authors.In many cases,however, they tell us a greatdeal aboutthe perception of artistsand their works. Certainlythat is true of two little-appreciatedseventeenthcentury anecdotes,one told by the Dutch painterCarel van Mander and the other by the Germanpainter Joachimvon Sandrart, about a picture that Caravaggio'allegedly painted in the church of San Lorenzo in Damasoin Rome. In his Het Schilder-Boeck (Haarlem: 1604), van Mander says that Caravaggio painted a "Historie" in the church of San Lorenzo in Damaso,nexl to a paintingby GiuseppeCesari,il Cavaliered'Arpino. In the picture, van Mander continues, Caravaggio"painted a dwarf or midget ["een Naenkenoft Reusken"] who sticks out his tongue at Giuseppe'spainting, making it seemas if in this way he wantedto ridicule Giuseppe'swork: he is one who thinkslittle of the works of other masters,but will not openly praise his own."' In the corrigenda to his book, van Mander recantedhis story; he had "been misinformed,"he says,"that

MichelangeloCaravaggiomade fun of the work of Giuseppino by painting that dwarf."2 The meaning of van Mander's recantationis not clear.He could meanthat Caravaggiodepicteda dwarf in a paintingin the chapel,but did.not use it to makefun of Cesari'swork. Or he might mean that Caravaggiodid not paint a dwarf at all. Today we assumethat, althoughGiuseppeCesari painted in San Lorenzo in Damaso, Caravaggiodid not work there.r Seeminglya personunknown,either intentionallyor unintentionally,misinformed van Mander about Caravaggio,saying that he had painted a little person ridiculing a paintingby GiuseppeCesari.After printing his book, van Mander, in some way unknown to us, determinedthat he had been misleadandthat his earlierreportwas false, suggestingthat historicalaccuracyhadbeen his original intention.His informant,however,might havebeenconfused,reportinga storyaboutpaintingsin onechapelthatreally applied to works in another place. We might assume,then,that the story is correct but pertains instead to works of another moment and location, perhapsthose in the ContarelliChapelin the churchof SanLuigi dei Francesciin Rome, which contains paintingsby both Caravaggioand Cesari.' Thereis, however,no evidencein the paintings in that chapelto supportthat assumption. If we assumethat the anecdoteis not true

37 and readit as a humorousbit of rhetoric.we may wonder why the figure of Caravaggio is said to be a dwarf. The answermight lie in the circumstancesof Caravaggio'slife at the time. Early in his career,he worked in Cesari's studio for about eight months. Cesari, whose talents as an artist were then greatly in demand, was only a few years older than Caravaggio.Potentiallyrelevant, too, are the uneasyrelationshipthat seems to haveexistedbetweenthe two artistsand the difference in their styles of painting.5 The naturalism of Caravaggio'spaintings was fundamentally different from the precious, somewhattired but elegantbrand of late Mannerismpracticedby Cesari.Those who knew Caravaggio,who was relatively new to Rome, might have viewed him as diminutive in the sensethat he did not enjoy the praise and commissionsfor paintings lavished upon Cesari, or they might have understoodthat he saw himself as a dwarf. In otherwords,Caravaggiomight haveseen himself as a type of David facing the giant, Cesari,whom he perceivedas a Goliath-like enemy to be overcome.The aggresivegesture of the dwarf's tongue would also have expressed,as van Mander says, Caravaggio's low opinion of Cesariand his styleof painting. Some scholars have assumedthat van Mander is the only author to refer to Caravaggio'spainting.6Later in the century, however,Sandrart,who usedvan Mander's book as a sourcefor his own TeutscheAcademie der Edlen Bau- Bild- und MahlereyKunste (Nuremberg: 1675), seemsto have deliberately reinvented the Dutchman's story.In his brief accountof the artist,Sandrart describesCaravaggioas quarrelsome and unruly. Becauseof his temperament, Sandrartsays,the artist "got in troublewith

GiuseppeCesari,then a prominent painter held in high esteembecauseof his art, cultivation,and greatwealth."Caravaggio,Sandrart further explains, "not only attacked Arpino with pointedepithetsbut next to his painting ['Historie'] in San Lorenzo in Damasohe painted a giant who sticks out his tonguein order to ridicule rt."' Sandrart,a pupil of Gerrit van Honthorst, one of the Dutch Caravaggisti,lived in Rome between 1629 and 1635. There he worked for Vincenzo Giustiniani, who had been perhaps the most important of Caravaggio'searly patrons.Sandrartseemsto have intentionally altered van Mander's story,eventhough he must haveknown that it was historically inaccurate.One changeis that in van Mander's anecdote,Caravaggio had depicted a dwarf within a painting, while Sandrartmentionsonly a single figure,furtherdecreasingthe likelihoodthathe describedan actualpicture.In other words, we cannotimaginecircumstances in which Caravaggiowould havepainteda singlefigure of a giant sticking its tongue out in the directionof one of Cesari'spaintings. When Sandrartreinventedthe anecdote, he also transformed Caravaggio from a midgetto a giant and,by implication,Cesari from a relativelylarge figure to a relatively small one. Caravaggio,who had gradually grown in statureover the courseof several decades,dwarfs Cesari, or Giuseppino,as van Mander at times calls him. To van Mander in the first few years of the seventeenth century, before Caravaggio had achieved internationalrenown as an artist. he seemed a dwarf when compared to Cesari. Over time, little by little, Giuseppeseemsto have diminshedin stature,until, by 1675,when Caravaggio'simportance as an artist was widely known and appreciated,Sandrart,

38 heir to a Caravaggesquestyle, perceived him as a giant. Although seeminglylacking in historical accuracy,the two anecdotesabout the size of the figure that Caravaggiosupposedly paintedevoke qualities that define his character,particularly his sometimesaggressive and violent behavior toward his fellow

artists.The storiesalso focus attention on Caravaggio's anatomy, including his tongue,which was one vehicle for his rude and offensive assaults,and the thing that most got him into trouble. Indeed,as his early biographersimply, his tongue was instrumentalin bringing about the events that led to his prematuredeath.

NOTES l. For the Dutch text and a translation. see Howard Hibbard, Caravaggio(New York: 1983),p. 344: "Hier in heeft hy gemaect een Naenken oft Reuskendat naeIosephsHistorietoo siendede tongh uyt steeckt schijnendeof hy Iosephs werck wilde bespotten." 2. Ibid., p.345. 3. Ibid., p.343. Van Mander's"referenceto paintings in San Lorenzo in Damasoby GiuseppeCesari seemsto be correct; but the story of Caravaggio's dwarf nearbyis erroneous." 4. This is the conclusionof Hibbard,p.343. 5. For a recentdescriptionof Caravaggio'sunruly personality,seeHelen Langdon, Caravaggio:A Lifu (New York: 1998),pp. 67-68. Seealso Hibbard, pp. 375-380, for Sandrart'saccountof severalarzuments

betweenCaravaggioand GiuseppeCesari. 6. See, for example,Creighton E. Gilbert, Caravaggio and His Two Cardinals (University park, Pa.,and London: 1995),p. 80. Gilbert rightly points out that van Mander's "anecdotebelongsto a genre most famouslyillustratedin the story of Bernini having one of the Four Riversin his famousfountainlift an arrn to avoid being hit by the collapseexpectedof a nearbychurchby Borromini." 7. For the Germantext and translation,see Hibbard, p. 376: "Diesen griffe unser Kunstler nicht allein mit spitzfindigen Stichelredenan, sondern mahlteihm auchzu trutzund Spotteine Historiezu S. Lorenzo in Damas, neben die, so gemeldterJoseph dahin Gemacht."