David with the Head of Goliath

Painted in Caravaggio's final year, on the run for murder and hoping this canvas would win him a papal pardon. The head of Goliath is Caravaggio's own self-portrait — mouth open, eyes half-alive, blood still dripping. David looks not triumphant but sorrowful, as if pitying his victim. It's an autobiographical confession: the painter is the monster, and he's asking to be beheaded.