If you haven’t crawled from a hungover stupor to a Caravaggio fifteen minutes before the DIA closed for the night, you’re missing out.
The Caravaggio in question is Martha and Mary Magdalene, a scene I don’t personally recognize from my limited understanding of Christianity. Mary holds a little flower close to her chest. Her other arm draped in cloth and leaning on something glass. Her ring finger almost looks broken. And bright, dominant in the painting, the organizing principle: Mary’s expression. It’s not the soft gracious look of someone dependent on anybody. It’s strong, forceful. Certain. You look her in the eyes and it’s as if she told you the wildest story and she is daring you to look for any sense of falsehood. If Mary is meant to be a figure of the redeemed in Christian thought, this painting says she never had to be redeemed at all.
It resonates with me. The previous night I had a spat with a loved one, went to the bar, and stayed until seven in the morning dreaming up a trip south to Louisiana with Alison and Doop. When we left for the night I checked the time. Alison told me not to say the time out loud.
I spent the next day in pain in bed sleeping it off. I drank some apple cider to get moving when the sun went back down. I got in my car and I drove north up Woodward and got fast food. I drove south eating and passed the DIA and noticed couples walking in. It was Friday, so the museum was open until nine. It just turned eight. I went home and changed my clothes. A decent pair of work boots. A thermal. A navy corduroy blazer. I got there and parked without paying. I walked up to the entrance and, thankfully, found the Caravaggio right away. It was literally the first room to the right.
It’s large. Mary might be life-size, maybe larger. Her eyes betray a conviction I crave. It’s in this conviction you can see that she needs no redeemer, and that’s consistently where my meditation wandered to. Mary stands in the painting before Martha, who is in shadow, looking up to this figure of strength, small, maybe frightened. And of course, I feel much more like Martha than Mary today. Mary’s strength looks like women I’ve known, some of whom may have looked to me in this same manner.
I didn’t stay long. I looked at the painting for ten minutes and overhead the museum played an automated message about closing for the night. I said thank you to the security guard on the way out and walked across the lawn to where my car was parked and drove home and I thought about dignity.