Caravaggio’s Judith Beheading Holofernes
A rebellion against the Renaissance tradition
Caravaggio’s circa 1598-9 145 cm × 195 centimeters oil painting on canvas Judith and Holofernes is one of the early examples of his dramatic and visceral religious paintings that helped usher in the Baroque period.
The painting is Caravaggio’s interpretation of the Biblical story about how the widow Judith saved her people, the Israelites, by seducing and getting drunk the Assyrian general Holofernes before decapitating him with a sword.
The painting is a reflection of Caravaggio’s violent personality and revolutionary artistic vision, and the Catholic church’s then-new aesthetic philosophy.
The Italian Michelangelo da Caravaggio (1571-1610) was likely bipolar. He led a life of both acclaim and trouble. He was jailed numerous times, killed a man in a brawl, was badly injured in another brawl, and had a death sentence put on his head by the Pope. He spent his last years on the run from the law, painting all along the way. He sued other artists who he felt copied his style and even his friends said he was difficult to get along with. His personality is shown in his art, and, as his life became more desperate, his paintings became more and more sensational.
Caravaggio and the Baroque movement rebelled against the Renaissance tradition. As exemplified by Botticelli’s humanist works, Renaissance paintings idealized their subjects and were based on gracefulness, harmony, symmetry, and order.
Caravaggio made his subjects realistic, often showing bruises, scratches, and wrinkles. He was influenced by the realism of Northern European art. Further, his religious scenes were immediate and showed realistic action. His scenes were snapshots of the most intense moments of the events. His models were street people, and the model for Judith likely was a well-known prostitute. Unorthodoxically, he did not make preliminary sketches, but painted directly from the models, drawing outlines in the paint with the end of his brush as he needed.
Caravaggio lived at an opportune time for his artistic vision. The Catholic church was changing its aesthetic philosophy, wanting religious paintings that emotionally connected with the parishioners. Further, there was much construction going on, with a need for many murals and artists.
Caravaggio’s paintings were a sensation at the time. Caravaggio had great commercial success, but not without controversy. The church enjoyed his paintings but sometimes felt he went overboard in the violence and realism. Still, even the paintings that were rejected were bought up by wealthy collectors. Often called Caravaggisti or Caravagesques, other artists mimicked his style, and Caravaggio was an influence on Rubens and Rembrandt.
Judith Beheading Holofernes has for centuries been a regular subject for artists, including in paintings, sculptures, and even stained glass. It was a subject long before Caravaggio and is still today.
Though Judith is considered by Christians to be an important and brave heroine, her portrayal in art had varied and developed over time before Caravaggio’s treatment. She was originally portrayed as an entirely wholesome Mary figure, sometimes praying, but was later developed into more of an ambiguous Eve— a heroic but somewhat fallen and sexualized figure. Still, many of the artworks before Caravaggio, and even after, showed her as stoic and aloof, removed from the dirty deed. The scenes are often cold and sanitized in a highly stylized way. They come across more as icons than realistic depictions.
In Caravaggio’s version, he makes the scene immediate and dramatic using many techniques. Unlike many before or after the decapitation versions, he shows the moment of the decapitation, the sword half through the neck and blood spurting onto the white sheets. Holovernies is screaming out, his body contorted, one hand desperately clutching the sheets. Judith’s face shows both determination and disgust at what she is doing, perhaps having mixed feelings. Behind her, her maid is full of anger and vengeful bloodlust, firmly holding the bag for the head.
Caravaggio was famous for the use of chiaroscuro and tenebrism, which helped with the drama and emotions of his subjects. Chiaroscuro uses shading to give the figures a three-dimensional effect. Tenebrism makes large areas black, focusing the viewer’s attention on the desired figures and action. These two techniques brought the scenes to life and made the audience emotionally connected to the familiar Biblical scenes. Even today’s audiences are emotionally connected to the scenes.
This chiaroscuro and tenebrism make the scene jump out at you and focus on the action. The surrounding darkness gives it a dark mood and gives the theme of Judith sneaking in from the dark. Western viewers tend to read text and pictures from left to right, so we see Judith and her maid sneaking in to kill him. That Holofernes is not entirely in the scene and the maid is cropped as she is entering the scene gives the sense of action and movement, like a photographic snapshot.
In the inky background is a blood-red cloth, a billowing banner of victory and glory, but also of bloody murder. Judith herself is draped in both virginal white and red, symbolizing the Eve-like dichotomy. In an earlier version, Judith is bare-breasted, suggesting she had just left the bed and slept with the General. She is strong and determined, with her sleeves rolled up, but she also keeps the dirty deed at arm’s length, a sign of her distaste and repulsion for the job. The mixed emotions and symbols make her complex, unlike the many other one-dimensional caricatures of her in earlier paintings.
Many believe that Caravaggio saw the public beheading of Beatrice Cenci, a young woman who helped kill her incestuous father in a controversial and sensational case. This historical footnote not only accounts for the realism in the beheading of Holofernes but perhaps says that there may have been mixed emotions about the beheading. Many at the time thought the beheading of Cenci was unjust, as she was a victim too. However, the Pope said she must be killed.