Judith Slaying Holofernes (Artemisia Gentileschi, Florence)
Judith Slaying Holofernes c. 1620, now at the Uffizi Gallery in Florence, is the renowned painting by Baroque artist Artemisia Gentileschi depicting the assassination of Holofernes from the apocryphal Book of Judith. When compared to her earlier interpretation from Naples c. 1612, there are subtle but marked improvements to the composition and detailed elements of the work. These differences display the skill of a cultivated Baroque painter, with the adept use of chiaroscuro and realism to express the violent tension between Judith, Abra, and the dying Holofernes.
Description Gentileschi centers her work on the labor of the killing, which forces the gaze to start amid the tangle of blood, limbs, and metal. Her ability to display brutal realism is shown particularly in the details, such as the arc of carotid blood that spatters across the frame. This scene displays the use of chiaroscuro, or the drastic contrast between light and dark, both literally and figuratively.
Holofernes struggles in vain to press against Abra as the two women force him down with distinctly strong arms. Their sleeves are rolled up, as though they are performing an unavoidable domestic chore, and their faces express a staunch resolve. Judith drives the sword, which is noticeably vertical and shaped in a way that alludes to a cross, into flesh with an exertive force. Abra is depicted as almost a mirror to Judith, with a youthful appearance that departs from earlier portrayals of her character. She holds firm to the left arm of her fellow victim as he pushes against her breast in desperation. Holofernes, whose blood puddles and spurts a deep red to contrast the white sheets of his deathbed, is overpowered and without hope.
History Gentileschi was one of many artists who used Judith as a prominent and recurring subject throughout the Baroque period. In fact, Orazio Gentileschi, Artemisia Gentileschi's father, painted Judith and Her Maidservant with the Head of Holofernes c. 1610. Both artists assign the scene with a sense of urgency by choosing moments within the story that are filled with tension.
This similarity in theme and composition may have been due to the work of Michelangelo Merisi da Caravaggio, whose style so influenced the Gentileschi's. His famous depiction of Judith Beheading Holofernes from the late 16th century focused more on the conflict than previously seen.
The Uffizi Judith was commissioned by Grand Duke Cosimo II de' Medici who was responsible for art patronage at the Medici court. Presumably, Cosimo had seen the original Naples Judith and requested a variation to be made for his wife, Maria Magdalena. The painting would ultimately be included in a larger collection of artworks at the Pitti Palace which portrayed biblical heroines. Gentileschi received 50 scudi as payment for her work.
In the late 1700s, a Grand Duchess disapproved of the gruesome depiction of a usually timid scene, and had the painting moved to an isolated part of the Uffizi. There it remained until the 20th century, when this painting, including many others, was damaged in the 1993 terrorist bombing of the Pitti Palace. Following its restoration, the painting was once again placed in a largely peripheral location within the gallery. Now, Gentileschi's most prominent piece shares space with other great Baroque artists, including Caravaggio.
Artist Artemisia Gentileschi was born in Rome in 1593 and was the only daughter of Mannerist painter Orazio Gentileschi and Prudentia Montone Gentileschi. Orazio took notice of Artemisia's potential as a painter at an early age and helped to cultivate it. By 1610 she had successfully produced Susanna and the Elders, which is known to be her first signed painting. Shortly after her artistic debut, the painter Agostino Tassi, a colleague of Orazio who was hired to teach Artemisia linear perspective, raped the young Artemisia. A public trial was later brought forward and lasted through the summer of 1612. While under oath, and throughout torture by the Sibille, Artemisia avowed: "It's true, it's true, it's true, everything that I said." Tassi was ultimately found guilty of the crime and temporarily banished from Rome. This history is relevant as Gentileschi's early life has come to inform the perspectives of many contemporary feminist art historians, including Mary Garrard, and particularly in the case of Judith Slaying Holofernes.