My favourite painting

Caravaggio. The Beheading of St. John the Baptist. 1607-1608. Oil on canvas. Co-Cathedral of St. John, Valletta, Malta

I have had an abiding interest in visual art since my days studying Architecture. Indeed one of my enduring bittersweet moments was, after I split up with my first true love, coming over to London on my own for my 23rd birthday and being thrilled both by the Dali Exhibition at the Royal Academy and the exhibition on the great architect Edwin Lutyens at the South Bank. Surrounded by beauty and feelings of loneliness exacerbated by the strange feeling of not having a real conversation with anybody for four days. My artistic taste rails against the figurative; I never wanted art to be an undemanding mirror which reflects the world back at you. And my personal instincts are anti-religious; I firmly believe Man created God.

Surprising then that my favourite painting is both figurative and with a religious theme but this is no ordinary painting and is by no ordinary artist and it cannot be seen in any art gallery. It is "The Beheading of St. John the Baptist" and the artist is that genius of light and shade (chiaroscuro) Michelangelo Merisi, known as Caravaggio. His life was short, turbulent and violent and to see his greatest painting you have to travel to the Island of The Knight’s of St. John, to Malta. There you enter into the walled city of Valletta, a UNESCO World Heritage site which is the greatest fortified Medieval City in the world and the spiritual home of The Sovereign Military Order of the Hospital of St. John of Jerusalem, of Rhodes and of Malta.




Tomb of Knight Gregory Spinola 1682, Co-Cathedral of St. John, Valletta

Here is the Co-Cathedral of St. John, Valletta and you enter into the world of the Knight’s of St. John, an interior of amazing richness and you walk on a hallowed floor of lavish inlaid marble tombstones of Noble Knights who here in 1565 and in the naval battle of Lepanto in 1571 defeated the forces of Suleiman the Magnificent and stopped the Mediterranean becoming a Muslim sea and Europe becoming a Muslim Province. To this day in Malta when they celebrate “Victory Day” it is this victory they remember. Afterwards in gratitude Catholic Europe poured money into Malta and the Knight’s built their great city of Valletta opposite the “Three Cities” on the far side of The Grand Harbour which had withstood the siege of Malta.




Co-Cathedral of St. John, Valletta

So in this hallowed space you then enter the vestry of the Cathedral and there you are stunned to silence by this, Caravaggio’s greatest work in the setting for which it was painted. You stare at this huge painting and you realise the artist’s genius as the painting is mis-titled. For what you are witnessing is not a beheading but the aftermath, when the executioner calmly and callously takes his knife to perform a butcher’s task, the severing of the neck sinews. There is not a religious symbol in sight but what there is like a Joycean text is a picture of mundanity and sparse detail, for the person being so callously butchered in front of the indifferent onlookers is no ordinary, person. For this is the patron after whom the Knight’s Order is named, John the Baptist who in the River Jordan baptised and had as a follower and disciple one Jesus of Nazareth. But there is no sentimentality in this picture, just the confident genius to picture this shocking event with sparse detail and no displays of reverence. It could be a sheep’s head being butchered and it is this scrupulous meanness of depiction which heightens the sense of man’s inhumanity to man. No longer concerned with the incidentals of the narrative, Caravaggio focuses on the essential human tragedy of the story. By presenting the opposite of the Christian message so graphically it emphasises the radical message of its founder, the disciple of John the Baptist. This picture was of huge symbolic importance to the Order of St. John whose most important relic was the arm of St. John, the arm which baptised Jesus.



This picture is the altar piece of the Oratory and was commissioned by Grand Master Alof de Wignacourt. It is the largest painting produced by the artist (12 feet x 17 feet) and the only one known to be signed. This painting is described as his all-time masterpiece. The painting depicts the moment in Biblical history where St John is beheaded by King Herod to satisfy the blood lust of the seductive dancer, Salome. The scene is the courtyard of a prison and the grisly murder is observed by two other prisoners looking through a grille, while a young woman and an old crone stand ready to take the severed head and put it on the waiting platter. The blood flowing from St John's neck drips towards the bottom of the frame and in its red stream, Caravaggio signed his name.


Michelangelo Merisi, Caravaggio

Michelangelo Merisi was born in the town of Caravaggio (about 30 kilometres from Milan) in 1571. Caravaggio was, in fact, the first great representative of the Baroque movement. He was the archetypal rebellious artist and led a turbulent life. His life, it is said, matched the high-drama of the chiaroscuro style that his paintings became famous for.

In 1606 whilst working in Rome, one of his many brawls resulted in Caravaggio killing a young man called Ranuccio Tomassoni. With a price on his head, Caravaggio fled and headed for Naples where he would be outside the Roman jurisdiction and under the protection of the Colonna family. After just a few months, despite a successful period in Naples where he was given a number of important church commissions, Caravaggio left for Malta, the headquarters of the Knights of the Order of St John of Jerusalem, arriving on the island in July 1607.

Grand Master Alof de Wignacourt invested Caravaggio as a knight of magistral obedience so taken was he at having an artist of such calibre as official painter of the Order. It was during this time that Caravaggio was commissioned to paint ‘The Beheading of St John the Baptist’ and ‘St Jerome Writing’, both of which are on display in St John’s Co-Cathedral.


Grand Master Alof de Wignacourt

This period of relative calm in his life was short lived, and by late August 1608, Caravaggio was arrested for causing trouble once again, this time badly wounding a high ranking Knight in another fight. Imprisoned at Fort St Angelo, disgraced and unable to paint, he used his inventive powers to plan his escape. Caravaggio’s incredible break-out took place in October 1608 and once again he was on the run. The Council, informed of his escape, immediately expelled him from the Order.


St John’s Co-Cathedral


After a nine month stay in Sicily, during which time he was trying to secure a pardon from Pope Paul V, Caravaggio returned to Naples and the protection of the Colonna family. His style and technique as an artist was still evolving and he enjoyed a productive time in his second spell in Naples. An attempt was made on his life, and an incorrect account of his death was reported in Rome. Although Caravaggio survived the attempt, his face was left seriously disfigured.


'Salome with the Head of John the Baptist',Caravaggio depicted his own head on the platter

In an attempt to build bridges, Caravaggio painted 'Salome with the Head of John the Baptist'. He depicted his own head on the platter and sent the work to de Wignacourt as a plea for forgiveness. In 1610, Caravaggio took a boat north to receive a pardon, thanks to powerful allies in Rome. What happened then is shrouded in mystery. The artist was reported as dead in a private newsletter (an avviso) dated 28th July. Three days later, another newsletter declared that the artist had died of fever. His body, however, was never found.

This picture of ‘St Jerome Writing’ looks upon “The Beheading of St John the Baptist” from the back of the vestry. It was painted for Ippolito Malaspina, a Maltese knight whose coat of arms is on the wooden panel to the right. He was connected by marriage to Caravaggio's patron Ottavio Costa and was a confidant of the Grand Master, who may have been used as the model for the saint (similarly Van Dyck was to use the sister of the Queen of England as model for the Madonna). The saint does indeed look like the knight in a recently discovered portrait by Caravaggio, who has been identified by some as Wignacourt himself.


St Jerome Writing, Caravaggio 1607

The composition is planned in terms of triangles. One rises from the table to the saint's head, another has its apex at the cardinal's hat on the wall to the left, a third recedes to the bedstead at the back on the right. This simple design helps convey an idea of simplicity. St Jerome has no halo, his workbench is rudimentary, he does not own any folios, he has one candle to see by, a crucifix to meditate on, a stone to beat against his chest, and a skull to remind him of his mortality. He is partly naked because he lives an eremitical life in the desert of Judaea. A steady light shines on his torso and picks out the red cloak round his legs. The source of the light is outside the picture, and can be interpreted as Christ, Light of the World.


Caravaggio's signature on the "Beheading of St. John the Baptist" before and after restoration. It is the only painting he ever signed


Awe is an expression too often used and consequently devalued. But it is an apt word to describe the effect of seeing Caravaggio’s great masterpiece, a painting which fills your mind as effectively as its huge size fills the end wall of the vestry church. A splendored setting filled with the spirits and bodies of the knights. In this context and watched over by St. Jerome “The Beheading of St. John the Baptist” will reduce you to silence and wonder. Travel to see it, its scale and impact can never be represented in a photo.

For the story of The Sovereign Military Order of the Hospital of St. John of Jerusalem, of Rhodes and of Malta, see;

http://daithaic.blogspot.com/2008/03/knights-of-malta.html


For the story of the UNESCO Heritage site which is Valletta see;

http://daithaic.blogspot.com/2008/05/valletta-and-grand-harbour.html

To see the city (also a UNESCO World Heritage site) which the Knights left on 1st January 1523 when defeated by Suleiman the Magnificent see;

http://daithaic.blogspot.com/2010/03/rhodes-town.html




Valletta