David and Goliath

No armies, no triumph: only a boy kneeling on a giant's body in the dark, quietly tying up the severed head by the hair. Caravaggio painted this David around 1600, and it is now in the Prado.

The story behind the painting

Caravaggio made this painting early in his career, around 1600, while he lived in the household of Cardinal Francesco Maria del Monte in Rome. It shows the biblical David as a young boy, as in the Bible story, after he has felled the Philistine champion Goliath. Later Caravaggio returned to the theme twice, in the David with the Head of Goliath now in Vienna and another in the Galleria Borghese in Rome.

What to look for

Light falls on David's leg, arm and flank, on the massive shoulders from which Goliath's head has been cut, and on the head itself; everything else is dark. Even David's face is almost lost in shadow. A wound on Goliath's forehead shows where the stone from the sling struck. The boy kneels almost casually on the man's torso, hands in his enemy's hair, intent on his work. The canvas is about 110 by 91 cm.

Meaning and intent

Caravaggio first painted Goliath's face in wild-eyed, open-mouthed terror, tongue rolling and eyes turned to the edges of their sockets. In the finished picture that melodrama is gone, and the drama passes to the quietly efficient David. The overwhelming impression is of something intensely personal and private, a victory without any celebration. Caravaggio chose silence over spectacle, and the quiet makes the moment more unsettling, not less. What remains is a boy, a body and the dark around them.

Legacy

This painting and two others made at about the same time, the first Sacrifice of Isaac and the first John the Baptist, were taken to Spain soon after they were painted. There they were often copied and made a deep impression on Spanish art. The work is known by several titles, including David with the Head of Goliath and David Victorious over Goliath. Its quiet, dark drama thus travelled far beyond Rome soon after it was made.