66 feeling of guilt; over time, it brought an obsession with death which was the reason for the ever-present darkness of his paintings including David with the Head of Goliath. The author wonders, however, whether darkness is the same thing as gloom and concludes that they are different.5 Gloom embraces death. Darkness is a space to be entered in order to gain confidence.6 The difference is well described in Dark Night by St. John of the Cross: On a dark night, Kindled in love with yearnings —oh, happy chance!— I went forth without being observed, My house being now at rest. In darkness and secure, By the secret ladder, disguised—oh, happy chance!— In darkness and in concealment, My house being now at rest. In the happy night, In secret, when none saw me, Nor I beheld aught, Without light or guide, save that which burned in my heart The darkness in the painting suggested for meditation is active, it takes part in a series of events important for Merisi. It is a part of his life. Frankl, and especially Freud et consortes, would have seen in the darkness subconscious sensations, complexes, wounds to be worked out, opened and treated. But let’s ask a question whether after a psychotherapeutic sorting out of a difficult life history, smoothened in an almost inhumane manner, Merisi would be able to paint David with the Head of Goliath? The author of the essay, Tomasz Derulski, claims that if Caravaggio had been brainwashed in psychoanalysis, he would have never destroyed the safety barrier between the painting and the viewer7. The darkness of Caravaggio’s life is infused with the atmosphere of Rome where he lived and worked. Existential themes emerged in his work, taking the form of promiscuity, crime, beggars, prostitutes and loan sharks, violence to the extent of murder. The artist, deemed a murderer, had to keep running away and living in fear which shaped his aesthetic sensitivity. Hence a series of paintings with cut off heads. Themes of the paintings 5 Cf. ibid. 6 Cf. ibid. 7 Cf. ibid.
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