EPPH - Every Painter Paints Himself

The Error of “Errors”

Allowing an art lover to interpret art on their own is the purpose of this site and we reveal many ways to do so. This tip, though, is so effective at finding a route into the artist's meaning that I reveal with it some hesitation: the artist's "error." I have discovered that whenever an art historian writes that a great master made a mistake, the observation is generally a quick route to some aspect of the work's meaning. For example, I read today an article on Caravaggio by Martin Gayford with this amazing statement:

"....it is perfectly true that his [Caravaggio's] paintings are full of faults that a competent 16th or 17th century artist wouldn't usually make. His figures don't occupy a consistent space. Some are so crowded that they appear to be standing in the same spot - as in his Entombment of Christ (above)"¹

Caravaggio made mistakes? Bingo!, I thought. That will help me understand the painting. And, sure enough, Gayford had opened my eyes to something I had never seen: all the standing figures are on the same spot. Well, great masters never make mistakes; only writers do. Gayford, imagining Caravaggio as a Baroque version of Annie Liebowitz, sees mistakes in his representation of space. We, on the other hand, aware that every painter paints himself, see something else entirely. Each of the standing figures is a representation or alter ego of the same man's mind, Caravaggio's. That is why they stand on the same spot. It's a tip to those on the inside who read on this level; for those that don't, it either baffles them or blinds them. 

Incidentally, I was also blinded by what I thought I knew - that multiple figures must stand on different spots - when, in fact, they were doing the impossible: standing on the same spot. That shows how my imagination formed my sight. I saw what I thought I knew, not what was really there. Thanks, Martin!

1. Gayford, "How Caravaggio saw in the dark", Daily Telegraph Review (UK), July 10th 2010, pp. R14-15