I have a lot of feelings about Renaissance and Baroque art (and the little sliver of Mannerism in the middle) However, one of the strongest of these feelings is about Artemisia Gentileschi and her version of the biblical story of Judith beheading Holofernes.
The story goes like this (but I’ve never actually read the story I’ve only been told it in the traditional bardic fashion, and this is the version I’ve always been told): The Assyrian army is preparing to take over a town but they’ve stopped for the night, camping just outside the town and resting up for the battle planned for the following day. The townsfolk are nervous and preparing for the worst, and Judith and her lady-in-waiting concoct a plan.
A plan to masquerade as hookers in order to get into the general’s tent and kill him. They dressed up in sexy outfits, walked into the army camp, eyelashes fluttering and hips swinging just so, and soon, the general let them into his tent.
This general, Holofernes (you can see where this is going), gets absolutely wasted, and as he is on the verge of passing out, Judith grabs his sword and beheads him while her lady-in-waiting holds him in place.
Evidently, the screams from the tent probably sounded like the right kind of screams, because Judith and her lady-in-waiting were able to leave the camp with his severed head by smiling coyly at the guards on duty.
The following morning, when the army was ready to attack, the soldiers found the headless body of their general in his tent and, when they approached the villagers, found his head in Judith’s hands. Needless to say, the army accepted defeat and left, demonstrating that there are more tools in a person’s arsenal than traditional weaponry.
Great story. Inspirational as hell. Right?
Caravaggio would disagree. He painted the climactic scene of the beheading, but not the way most people would picture it these days. He showed Holofernes as asleep, Judith as a young maid holding the sword with a sour expression on her face, and her lady-in-waiting as an old crone directing Judith on what to do. It is decidedly not the powerful scene I would have pictured when hearing the story, but it was probably the scene Renaissance and Baroque people pictured.
Except.
Except Artemisia painted the same scene. Holofernes is awake and screaming in agony, Judith has one hand holding his hair and the other holding the handle of the sword she’s using to cut off his head, and her lady-in-waiting is on top of Holofernes, trying to hold him down so Judith can do her thing.
Objectively, it’s a much more dynamic scene! If we look at just the figures, we have three characters: Judith, her lady-in-waiting, and Holofernes. In Caravaggio’s, Judith is young, practically a teenager, and wears an expression of disgust and confusion. She holds the sword at an arm’s length, which even an untrained eye would feel is going to make it hard to cut off someone’s head. In Artemisia’s, she’s older, using both her hands, elbows bent, holding Holofernes’ head in place as she viscerally carves with the sword.
Judith’s lady-in-waiting has arguably the most stark differences. In Caravaggio’s, she’s an old crone, barely in frame on the far right side of the scene. She is not involved in the act and is instead directing Judith’s actions. In Artemisias’s, she’s young, strong, and straddling Holofernes, holding him down and in place so Judith can more easily behead him. She plays an active role in the scene.
Even Holofernes is portrayed differently. In Caravaggio’s, Holofernes is almost unconscious, implying that Judith beheading him was more of a crime of opportunity than a premeditated and planned action. It cheapens the act and makes it feel like it was easier than the story leads us to believe. Conversely, Artemisia makes sure Holofernes is awake and still kicking when Judith beheads him. This allows her to involve both Judith AND her lady-in-waiting, and creates a fundamentally more dynamic scene.
Both paintings demonstrate similar painting techniques such as tenebrism, so the main distinctions come down to how the figures in the paintings interact with the story depicted. And Artemisia simply painted a better depiction of the story.