Caravaggio Exhibition Funded By Anti-Gay Millionaire

"Caravaggio: The Final Years" at the National Gallery in London which consists of 15 works by the Italian master, was financed by the ultra-conservative, anti-gay millionaire Howard F. Ahmanson Jr. The funding of the exhibition is particularly noteworthy given Caravaggio's turbulent and self-indulgent lifestyle that includes prostitutes as models, homosexual relationships, and murder. Ahmanson's philanthropic track record (for some insight click here) indicates nothing to explain the recent act of irony, suggesting either that he was simply unaware of Caravaggio's personal life and felt compelled to contribute to an exhibition of an artist whose work tends to be religious in theme or that his support is some attempt to get the National Gallery in his pocket. One could argue that, despite Caravaggio's earlier secular (and overtly homo-erotic) works, Ahmanson was able to appreciate the religiosity prevalent throughout the artist's oeuvre, however I'm inclined to believe Ahmanson was utterly unaware of Caravaggio's lifestyle and secular works and was only familiar with his religious themes.

Some years ago Ahmanson contributed $62,500 to the Western Center for Law and Religious Freedom which, among other legal actions, helped the Kern County school district defend its banning of the book One Hundred Years of Solitude, by Gabriel Garcia Marquez, on the grounds of "profanity" and "vulgarity." When one considers the highly sexualized pose of the young Cupid and the multiple works depicting the decapitation of either Holofernes, Goliath or Saint John the Baptist, one is curious indeed as to what exactly Mr. Ahmanson finds "profane" and "vulgar." While I very much appreciate Caravaggio's work, those in the exhibition are for the most part dark, violent images that, were it not for the fact that they depict religious scenes, Ahmanson would likely find them wholly objectionable, making his support of such an exhibition truly peculiar.