The Head of Goliath

Karl Krauze would soon escape the familial bonds of his first eighteen years, all spent in his family’s modest house in Graz, Austria. School had been nightmarish at times but now he could start a new life as a university student in Vienna.

For as long as he could remember he had doodled, sketched and drawn. He knew he had a good measure of talent which he could hone at the Academy of Fine Arts in Vienna, some 200 kilometers to the northeast.

He hoped he’d forget the beatings from a pair of bigger, mean classmates and the occasional beatings from his father.

The Academy

The Academy was founded in 1692 and in the centuries since it was known for three things: First, it owned a large triptych by Hieronymus Bosch, “The Last Judgement,” painted in 1492. The work had many of the same vile creatures and apocalyptic imagery that populated Bosch’s more familiar “Garden of Earthly Delights.” Karl had seen The Last Judgement once, when he was in Vienna to learn the Academy’s admissions process, and he was overwhelmed with a feeling of belonging in the three scenes, being inside the triptych’s melee.

If a piece of art failed to spark an emotion, of any kind, Klaus would ignore it. Bosch's tryptic energized him.

The Academy was next known for rejecting the 1907 and 1908 applications of a young man from Linz, a nondescript provincial capital west of Vienna. The young man was Adolph Hitler and the admissions committee explained its decision: Hitler’s drawing skills did not measure up.

The third item of note was its rigorous admissions procedure. First was submitting acceptable samples of the applicant’s work. Past that threshold was a series of interviews by faculty and staff, and then last a half-day session before the admissions committee in which the applicant first defended his art, was quizzed on it, and then was peppered with questions about anything from mathematics to art history, science to philosophy. The Academy wanted its graduates to be more than a painter or a sculptor.

His work was excellent and the Academy invited Klaus to apply for admission.

The Boy

Karl was nervous as the process began but soon relaxed as two of the faculty members showed an interest in him.

Karl was either handsome or pretty, depending on the viewer’s predilections. He had been teased as “Karla” by schoolboys who would have snickered at the word “androgyne” and used it against him. When he was young the taunts had no meaning, but as he grew older he began to understand that he was different. He had been unhappy, but that feeling was later replaced by anger, then rage.

He hid that rage, isolated, and took pleasure only in his sketchbooks. His parents admitted that Karl was “different” and let him do what he wished.

He sent four sketchbooks to the Academy in Vienna, along with a biography. After he received the Academy’s formal, written invitation to apply for admission and before leaving for Vienna, Karl left a stack of sketchbooks on the desk in his attic bedroom. Certain sketchbooks were put in a locked trunk hidden under his bed. Karl considered them to be his treasure but others would see the grotesque and explicit acts and wonder about the boy. Thus the lock.

The First Night in Vienna

Karl spent his first afternoon wandering around Vienna’s Inner Stadt, the area inside its famous Ring Road. The area included Parliament, the Opera House, the enormous Hofburg palace, museums of every sort, from Freud’s office to the Royal jewels to the Spanish Riding School, the armory museum and more. It was the seat of the former Hapsburg Empire, which ruled much of Europe for six centuries.

As he meandered the area he stopped in a number of shops, from books to antiquaries to weaponry. After seeing much, he treated himself to a pastry at the famous Café Demel.

In the paling light as day turned towards evening, he headed back to the University and tried a shortcut down a darkened side street. That afternoon he had found Vienna to be a spotless wonder – no litter, no panhandling, no alcoholics or addicts, no homeless people.

As evening arrived a different and imperfect Vienna revealed itself on the narrow lanes and alleys of the Inner Stadt. A group of grubby men, probably drunks, blocked his way. “A Euro to pass,” demanded one bearded man as his mates yelled in support. Looking for a way out, Karel saw empty liquor bottles, several hypodermic needles and a lot of trash. He turned and ran, to the hoots of those men.

He could return one night and exact revenge.

The Assembly

School began with assemblies for each class. Karl’s incoming class had about 400 new students and their assembly first covered mundane issues, such as class schedules, laundry, bicycle storage and so forth. It ended with a spirited address by the Rector.

Much of his talk was expected: the value of art, the process of making art, the emotional component of art by the maker and by the viewer, and art history. The Rector closed with a suggestion that felt like an order.

“You – we – are fortunate to be in Vienna. You will find many museums here, from major ones like the Albertina and the grand art history museum – the Kunsthistorisches Museum. Your student IDs will get you into any of these museums free, as often as you wish. Sample a number of museums and choose one painting that moves you. Then return and stare at that painting for ten minutes. Return again and stare for an hour. Repeat until that painting speaks to you and becomes part of you.”

Klaus Sees Some Art

Karl Krauze always seemed to have plenty of time to think, see things, or do something. That was one positive aspect of being a loner.

After the Rector’s “suggestion” about museums, Karl mapped out his visits. First would be the Albertina, a modern addition to the massive Hofburg Castle. It had a fine collection: Cezanne, Monet, Durer, Picasso…the Albertina was full of Impressionist and post-Impressionist art. It was certainly likeable, though not a challenge. Karl did not see any edginess, though, and looking at pretty painting after pretty painting left him slightly bored. His own drawings were better, at least in his mind.

As he walked slowly on the sidewalk back to the university a mangy cat crossed in front of him. He kicked it away.

The next day he visited the famous Belvedere Palace, where he ogled Gustav Klimt’s most famous work, The Kiss. Certainly the gilded painting deserved its mass appeal and certainly it was sensuous, but Karl didn’t place much value on those attributes.

Two days later he spent the afternoon at the Leopold Museum, famed for its holdings of paintings by Egon Schiele and Oskar Kokoschka. Both painted figuratively, but with cartoonishly distorted heads and often with explicitly depicted bodies. This was tough art, rough art, which unsettled many viewers. Not Karl Krauze, though. He enjoyed the art but no one piece spoke to him.

It took him four afternoons to see all the great works in the enormous Kunsthistorisches Museum. He’d never been to the Louvre, the Metropolitan Museum in America, the Hermitage in Russia, but surely this big Vienna museum was of similar stature.

He was awed by its encyclopedic collection: Titian, Tintoretto, Rubens, Van Dyck, Durer, Vermeer, Rembrandt, Caravaggio, Velasquez and more. It’s holdings of Pieter Bruegel’s paintings was especially impressive, and Karl was entranced by that Netherlandish artist’s 1565 “Hunters in the Snow,” a bleak wintry scene that exploded into Karl’s consciousness. He sat in front of that painting for an hour on his first visit, absorbing it.

Next, Karl found himself in a room with several Caravaggios. The Italian painter’s early works used the contrast of uneven light and dark to add depth to the paining, a technique called chiaroscuro; among others, Leonardo da Vinci also used this technique.

Caravaggio took the technique to another level, using black backgrounds to add emphasis to a painting’s subject and drama to the entire painting. He called this Tenebrism.

While young Krauze liked all of the museum’s Caravaggios, one painting depicting a Biblical scene flew off the wall with an energy that staggered the young art student. Karl’s heart beat faster. He was short of breath and dizzy. That painting had two figures and one of them was Karl Krauze. The other was Goliath's severed head, held by Karl's outstretched left hand as if it was an offering.

Michelangelo Merisi da Caravaggio

During his short life (1571 – 1610) this giant of Italian Baroque art worked mainly in Rome. He could be tempestuous, rowdy and impulsive. Brilliant, too. In making his art, Caravaggio would unleash these traits and “attack” canvasses with vengeance, often with the black backgrounds of Tenebrism.

Caravaggio was often in trouble with Rome’s police for various misbehaviors. (He was once arrested for throwing a plate of artichokes at a waiter.) Then these misdemeanors seemed vaporous compared to his being charged of murder after killing someone in a brawl. The Pope declined to pardon him and Caravaggio left for Naples and other places beyond Rome’s reach.

The Painting

One biblical passage, First Samuel 17:57, resonated with the artist: “David killed the Philistine Goliath and was presented to Saul with the Philistine’s head still in his hand.” Caravaggio would have primed a canvas, picked up a brush and begun to paint that scene.

There was no grassy foreground, nor visible sky. No structures. No furnishings. The tenebristic black background heightened the human flesh. There was only a sylph-like boy wearing a tunic or robe draped over one shoulder, his right hand holding the grip of a broadsword and his left hand outstretched, presenting the severed, bloody head of a bearded man. The title of the large painting was David with the Head of Goliath.

Upon seeing it Klaus was stunned; he had to sit and stare, absorbing energy from the famous painting. The boy in the painting – David – could have been him. The piece captured Klaus’s attention, enthralled him, pleased him.

He returned to the museum and to the Caravaggio day after day after day, dumbstruck every time. Finally a curious museum guard approached Klaus, “Are you okay sir?”

“Ja,” Klaus answered. The interruption broke the spell and he was irritated and left the museum, his face flushed in anger.

A second museum guard raised an eyebrow at the first guard, who explained: “That kid is obsessed with that painting. He’s been here at least twenty days in a row. He just stares at it. He’s obsessed but probably harmless.”

Karl’s next day’s visit began in the museum’s gift shop, where images of many of its most famous artworks became the face of postcards. He bought three of the Caravaggio, one to pin on the door to his dorm room, one to glue to the cover of his sketchbook and one to frame and be front-and-center on his desk.

A Purchase

This time Karl had a specific destination, the weapons shop on a side street off Grabenstrasse. The shop was empty and the clerk gave full attention to Klaus, though the young man might be looking rather than buying.

Klaus was direct: “I’d like to look at your swords” and the clerk complied. He – the clerk – enjoyed holding swords and feeling their heft as he would mimic swordplay.

He showed Klaus how to hold the sword and how to use it for defense or for attack. One blade felt perfect to Klaus but it was too expensive. The clerk understood and said, “We have several used blades downstairs. They are much less.”

One 80-centimeter weapon fit Klaus perfectly. So did its price. He had only one request, “Can you put a good edge to it?”

“That’s not something we ordinarily do except for our better knives,” the clerk responded.

“I will pay you,” Klaus stated. “My uncle wants me to trim some shrubbery and a sharp sword will be more enjoyable than old shears.”

With that benign explanation the clerk began with a grinder and then with a sharpening stone. After some fifteen minutes sharp edges gleamed on both sides of the blade. Klaus gave him ten Euros and had the clerk wrap the weapon in brown paper.

Klaus silently named his weapon Xiphos, after the swords that Greek warriors used at the Battle of Thermopylae. Klaus hid Xiphos under his bed and began planning.

The Prey

Revenge and anger spawned a whirlpool of thoughts that Karl barely controlled. His first instinct was to return to the alley of the drunks, pick out one of the bums and let Xiphos decapitate him. Karl could see himself holding the severed head with one hand and the sword with the other, mimicking the Caravaggio.

That idea had a basic problem: With the head in his hand, what would he do next? He could hold a performative pose, but then what? Would he walk the Vienna streets scaring people until the police came? Probably. Would he hold the pose – and the head – and remain in the museum until he was bound with handcuffs?

He reluctantly discarded that plan. A better one came into focus. He would bring Xiphos with him on the next day’s museum visit and when the guard took his daily break, Karl would use the sword’s sharp tip to cut the canvas from its frame, roll it up and run. It would be his and his alone.

The Event

Karl Krauze bought a small folding easel and a sketchbook. He sandwiched his sword with those two things and hoped the bundle would not trigger any alarms as he entered the museum.

It worked and after climbing the grand staircase and moving though various galleries, he was once again in front of the Caravaggio masterwork. Karl nodded at the guard and then looked at the painting as was his daily ritual. The guard was surprised at the small greeting from the young man, who usually ignored him.

Eventually the guard needed a restroom break and left his post.

Now alone in the gallery, Karl pulled out the sword and ran to the painting. He would use the sharp point of the sword to cut the canvas and free it from its gilt frame. He began the surgery.

Karl could see the new scratch at the edge of the painting but the canvas was not freed. He tried another cut, this time at the bottom of the painting. Again, a clean scratch but another failure. The painting remained in its frame, taunting him.

“Halt!” cried a new voice. It was a policeman, alerted by the guard who had returned to his post and seen Karl’s second cut.

Karl froze as the policeman shouted, “You’re under arrest!” and took out a pair of handcuffs. A third man joined the scene. It was a senior curator, with an ashen face.

The policeman did not have a gun and Karl had a sword. It was a stalemate. Then the curator spoke, sneered actually, “Our painting is on wood, not canvas. That sword would never have cut through the wood.”

Karl had lost! He had been careless! He was trapped! Or was he?

Three men stood in front of Krauze and Xiphos might just clear a path for his escape. He raised the sword, stared at each of the men, raised Xiphos and lunged, swinging the sword.

***

Author’s suggestion: Google the artists and art mentioned here. You will enjoy doing so.