Artemisia Gentileschi, Judith Slaying Holofernes (Uffizi), 1614-18
Caravaggio, Judith Beheading Holofernes, 1599
“The similarities between Artemisia’s Uffizi painting and Caravaggio’s version are obvious as each depicts a calm, pragmatic Judith cutting through Holofernes’ neck. Each work is violent, but Artemisia’s has an intensity and tension more
disturbing than Caravaggio’s picture. In comparison to Artemisia’s figures, Caravaggio’s figures seem stiff and almost uninvolved with one another. Judith’s maid is only a passive observer. Artemisia endows her painting with force by
tilting Judith’s body to demonstrate her strength of action. The maid also plays an active role as she restrains Holofernes’ struggling body, Gentileschi’s figures have more energy as the movements are circular, revolving around the
spattering blood. The crisscrossing of arms, as well as the vertical emphasis at the center of sword, arms, and maid’s figure, contribute to the sense of tension. Caravaggio’s horizontal arrangement suggests aloofness. Artemisia
convincingly conveys Judith’s violent, yet heroic deed.“
- Shang, C.D. (1992). Artemisia Gentileschi.
“… it is worth comparing [Artemisia’s] version of Judith with Caravaggio’s. Caravaggio’s Judith is a young girl, with her hair braided in rings over either ear. She handles the sword to kill Holofernes, the general who had conquered her people, awkwardly, as something foreign to her, and she performs the action with a becoming squeamishness, as if repelled by the sight of blood, which spurts out in red jets. Caravaggio has composed the scene within a canvas far wider than it is high, in order to put as much distance between Judith and the victim as possible. Her servant is a crone, to show off Judith’s innocence and inexperience. Artemisia’s Judith is a femme forte. She handles the sword with the confidence and power of a fishwife dealing with a particularly large tuna, while her maidservant holds Holofernes down with both her arms. And the canvas is higher than wide, so that the full weight of the two women presses down. And the blood is there because–well, that’s the way decapitations were represented in Roman painting circa 1613.”
- Danto, A.C. (2002). Artemisia and the Elders.
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