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Gentileschi, Judith and Holofernes
Video transcript
(jazzy piano) Zucker: We're in the Uffizi
in Florence looking at a large Baroque painting by the
artist Artemisia Gentileschi. Harris: This is the painting
that's most often reproduced by Artemisia, the subject
is Judith and Holofernes. This is a biblical subject- Zucker: Old testament. Harris: It's the story of a
heroic woman and of course, that is always a handy thing
when you're an art historian and you're talking about a woman artist. In fact, it's difficult
often with women artists not to read their biography
into the paintings. Let's just take a close look
at the painting to start with. Zucker: It is Baroque in almost every way. We have this deep tenebrism,
this painting in a dark manner. This very shadowed background that creates this very shallow space
and then the brilliantly highlighted figures in the foreground. Harris: We are in the tent of the Assyrian general Holofernes. So the story is that Judith is
a Jewish widow from the town of Bethulia, which is under
siege by the Assyrian army. Holofernes is the general of that army. Zucker: And the Jewish
town is about to give up. Harris: Judith hatches
a plan to save Bethulia. Zucker: She dresses herself
up to catch the eye of the Assyrian general and is
able to move across enemy lines because she's seen as
betraying her own town. This story is usually
interpreted that she seduces the general, but he gets
drunk and falls asleep. Then she takes his sword and beheads him. That's the moment that we're seeing here. Harris: She's accompanied
by her maidservant. Artemisia also painted the
next moment of the story, which is after the beheading,
they take the head, put it in a bag and
bring it back to Bethulia to show everyone in the
town that they're now safe. Zucker: The maid is
pressing down on Holofernes with all of her might and
he seems to be fighting back as best he can in his
drunken, half-asleep state. But Judith is at that
moment severing his head and blood spurts everywhere,
this is tremendously violent. Harris: She grasps the beard
and the hair on his head and holds his head down
and with her right arm, draws that sword through his neck. You can feel the force that it took. This is very different from
Caravaggio's version of the subject where Judith looks
very dainty and as though she doesn't really have the
strength to behead Holofernes. Zucker: Look at the contrast of scale. Look at the size of
Holofernes' fist against the maidservant's face
and just how powerful he is versus the scale of the woman. Harris: Well it takes two of
them to conquer one of him. Zucker: Notice the way that
both of the women's arms are fully extended, whereas Holofernes'
arm breaks at the elbow. His leg breaks at the knee so we have the sense of dismemberment
that is not only at the head, but also at his other limbs. The womens' arms diagonals
pushing towards the center. The general's legs functioning very much to pair with the parallel
forearms of Judith. But all of those limbs
bringing our attention down to the severing, down to
the violent act itself. Harris: His body is
radically foreshortened. Something that is common in Baroque art. With his head [verif
clostas] and this blood spurting up and down those white sheets. The bloodiest, goriest part of this painting is what's closest to us. Zucker: And as you said,
Judith holds his head down. But what that does is
dislocates it so that it seems no longer connected to his body. Harris: We have this dramatic
contrast of light and dark that we also see very oft in Baroque art. Where we have areas of
very bright illumination right up against very
dark areas of shadow. Zucker: What that creates is
a kind of vivid physicality. Harris: And it looks to me like she's rolled up her sleeves in order to do this. The naturalism is so
palpable here and of course, that is the heart of Baroque art. (jazzy piano)