Judith Slaying Holofernes

According to the Book of Judith, the woman Judith was widowed when her husband was killed by the enemy general, Holofernes. Judith, seeking revenge, slowly gains the trust of Holofernes by offering him false information about his enemies while skillfully seducing him. One night in his bed, she is able to get him drunk enough to be mostly incoherent and, in his shocked confusion, decapitates him with the help of her maid. With the loss of their leader, the Assyrians give up, Judith becomes a hero of Israel, but remained unmarried for the remainder of her life, despite a consistent influx of suitors. Although there are many artistic depictions of he same story of Judith slaying Holofernes, they all present her in a different light, from a slightly repulsed woman to a willing warrior, all committing the same deed. Artists such as Giorgione, Titian, Rembrandt and Peter Paul Rubens have all painted Judith's act of revenge. Despite the fact that the same event is occurring in each painting, the emotions, placement, and connections of and between the figures are all very different.

Carvaggio painted this imae called Judith Beheading Holofernes. In this particular depiction, Judith is leaning back slightly as if she is repulsed by the blood and gore of beheading another human. The emotions on her face suggest that she is doing what she has to do, even if she hasn't been looking forward to the actual deed. Her maid is beside her, eagerly holding the bag open for the head as if she can't wait to completet her part in it. Holofernes himself is simply shocked; he can't believe that the woman who he's been sleeping with and receiving valuable (but false in actuality) information from has just betrayed him in such a way.  Carvaggio shows Judith as a normal woman of her time, no different than any other individual in her hair, face, or wardrobe, other than the fact that  she is leaning in to cut off the head of her late husband's enemy.

  

This painting was done by Atremisia Gentileschi. This image is much more graphic in its showing of blood than Carvaggio's, due to Gentileschi's own experience with a man who raped her, so she was not only expressing Judith's emotion in her art but also painting her own past into it. In her image, Holofernes appears to already be dead; his eyes are rolling back into his head and the sheets are spattered with his blood. This Judith is certainly not shying away from the murder, but fiercely holding him down, cutting with determination and without hesitation. The main is no longer just next to Judith, awaiting the head, but ehlping the other woman hold Holoferenes down. Both woman are depicted as normal for their time, without any special gear or dress to hint at what they have done. 

  

This version was painted by  Tiziano Vecellio, better known as Titian. In this image, Judith looks much more angelic, with all light focused on her skin and neck. Her face looks serenely calm, as if she wasn't holding a severed head at all. Holofernes is already dead, and her maid is looking at her with an expression that mirrors her own. Both women look to be unaffected by the deed that has just been done. Titian's version is free of any blood or gore, save the severed head, allowing the viewer to focus more on Judith than on a dead or dying body covered in blood (which would usually draw the eye). 

Different cultures and time periods also affected the way in which Judith was portrayed in the scene. In Christianity, she is showed as an innocent, praying protected image of a figure that resembles Mary. In Renaissance depictions, the change of Judith's image is described as a fall from grace, no longer resembling  Mary but Eve instead. In many of these images, she is shown as a "seducer-assassin," more sexualized and aggressive. Baroque depictions show Judith as flat out violent, but in a way that makes people see her as a vanquisher of adversary.  More modern paintings often cast Judith nude and holding a weapon, most frequently a sword. All in all, different artists with different styles have created many different versions of Judith's slaying of Holofernes, but all of these works show her as a brave woman who was able to bring peace to her people by bravely destroying an enemy.