A New Mode of Relationality: Bersani and Dutoit's Caravaggio

This paper shall focus on Leo Bersani and Ulysse Dutoit’s intriguing claim that famous Italian artist Michalengelo Merisi da Caravaggio’s paintings address a new mode of relationality. In their co-authored book Caravaggio’s Secrets, Bersani and Dutoit analyze the works of this radical artist from a non-anthropomorphized perspective in opposition to a psychoanalytical approach. In their meticulous study, Caravaggio became a master who depicts the subjects and their nexus to the surroundings in such a unique way that his paintings foresee new modes of sociality along with an unfamiliar relationality they present. The present study revisits Bersani and Dutoit’s contentions by focusing on the three significant aspects of Caravaggio’s paintings namely the soliciting gaze, the notion of center and the relationality in the paintings