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Judith Slaying Holofernes
Artemisia Gentileschi · Baroque & Dutch Golden Age
- Artist
- Artemisia Gentileschi (1593–c. 1656)
- Date
- c. 1612–1613
- Dimensions
- 158.8 x 125.5 cm
- Medium
- Oil on canvas
- Location
- Museo di Capodimonte, Naples, Italy
Artemisia Gentileschi’s Judith Slaying Holofernes depicts the biblical heroine who saved her people by beheading the Assyrian general Holofernes in his tent. This first version was painted when the artist was barely twenty.
A closer look
Where many painters showed Judith calmly holding the severed head, Artemisia shows the killing itself as hard physical work. Judith and her maid pin down the struggling general with their full weight; blood spurts across the white sheets. The strong contrasts of light recall Caravaggio, whose work Artemisia knew through her father, the painter Orazio Gentileschi. Many viewers have read the violence in the light of her own life, but the picture is above all a demonstration of extraordinary skill and drama.
