Last Sunday we made it to the Palazzo Barberini in Rome, mostly to see the exhibition "Caravaggio and Artemisia: The Challenge of Judith; Violence and Seduction in 16th and 17th Century Painting". Since the Judith in question was Judith of Bethulia, and the violence the beheading of Holofernes, we got to see quite a few paintings of decapitations. There was the occasional change, when pictures instead showed Judith and her servant bringing the head back home, but I remember only a couple of those.
Caravaggio's painting seemed to me distinctly the best of them. It struck me that his Judith's expression combines distaste with a concentration on doing the work properly, while her servant appears simply revolted. Artemisia Gentileschi's Judith is simply intent on the work, and her servant, much younger than in Caravaggio's picture, shows only concentration.
I have recently read about Judith in the Apocrypha. It reads more like Arthurian legend than Scripture. Very interesting that so many artists found it a worthy subject to paint.
ReplyDeleteThere was a Klimt exhibition on at a museum near where we stayed, but I didn't get a chance to see whether it included his famous painting of Judith with the head of Holofernes. The American poet John Crowe Ransom wrote a poem about her.
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