Judith Slaying Holofernes (Artemisia Gentileschi)
| Judith Slaying Holofernes | |
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| Artist | Artemisia Gentileschi |
| Year | c. 1614-20 |
| Medium | Oil on canvas |
| Dimensions | 158.8 cm × 125.5 cm ((6' 6" X 5' 4") 78.33 in × 64.13 in) |
| Location | National Museum of Capodimonte, Naples |
Judith Slaying Holofernes is a painting by the Italian early Baroque artist Artemisia Gentileschi completed between 1614–20. The work shows the scene of Judith beheading Holofernes, common in art since the early Renaissance, as part of the group of subjects called the Power of women, which show women triumphing over powerful men. The subject takes an episode from the apocryphal Book of Judith in the Old Testament, which recounts the assassination of the Assyrian general Holofernes by the Israelite heroine Judith. The painting shows the moment when Judith, helped by her maidservant, beheads the general after he has fallen asleep drunk.
The painting is relentlessly physical, from the wide spurts of blood to the energy of the two women as they perform the act. The effort of the women's struggle is most finely represented by the delicate face of the maid, who is younger than in most paintings, which is grasped by the oversized, muscular fist of Holofernes as he desperately struggles to survive. Although the painting depicts a classic scene from the Bible, Gentileschi drew herself as Judith and her mentor Agostino Tassi, who was tried in court for her rape, as Holofernes. Gentileschi's biographer Mary Garrard famously proposed an autobiographical reading of the painting, stating that it functions as "a cathartic expression of the artist's private, and perhaps repressed, rage."
This self-insertion was reversed in an influential composition by Cristofano Allori (c. 1613 onwards), which exists in several versions and copied a conceit of Caravaggio's recent David with the Head of Goliath; here the head is a portrait of the artist, Judith his ex-mistress, and the maid her mother.
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