Davide con testa di Golia (1610)
David with the Head of Goliath

Galleria Borghese

David has just triumphed over Goliath, but he is miserable. Is this grief or compassion? The decision not to depict the victor as elated reflects Caravaggios interest in the complexity of our emotional responses. The pensive boy indicates a psychosexual investment in Goliath that not even he may have recognise, until slaying him. How many times has this happened to us all? The epiphany is made more true and more queer by the fact that Caravaggio depicts himself as Goliath. The model for David is il suo Caravaggino (‘his own little Caravaggio’), the name for Cecco del Caravaggio, the artist's studio assistant in Rome. The erotic relationship between the two spills forth from the painting, David’s sword entering his crotch at a parallel to his gaze at the severed head. The young Caravaggio has murdered the old.