Caravaggio’s Autoartetherapies: On Brief Moments of Being Whole

Abstract

This article focuses on reading three selected paintings by Caravaggio through the lens of autoartetherapy, while drawing on theoretical knowledge from the psychology of trauma. Caravaggio, a painter rediscovered in the mid-20^th century whose works are exceptionally relevant, spent his entire life escaping something: the epidemic, poverty, the ambitions of others, papal punishment, and himself. He painted the truth. His models were ordinary people, often from the social margins to which he himself had been relegated after arriving in Rome. In the act of creation, the artist freed himself from what was unbearable, simultaneously creating a completely new, ethical form of art.