There is a question that every person asks at some point in their life: is it possible to do the right thing in the wrong way? Judith and Holofernes, by Caravaggio, painted around 1598-1599, is the visual answer to this question.
The biblical scene
The story comes from the Book of Judith, in the Old Testament: Holofernes, an Assyrian general, besieges the city of Bethulia, threatening to destroy it. Judith, a widow, infiltrates the enemy camp, seduces Holofernes, gets him drunk, and when he falls asleep, she beheads him with his own sword, saving the people.
A heroine without triumph
In the previous artistic tradition, Judith was painted as a triumphant, beautiful and serene heroine. Caravaggio paints the opposite: Judith's face is not one of triumph, it is that of someone who does something necessary and horrible at the same time. There is a contraction in her shoulders, a slight recoil of her body, as if she needed all the willpower in the world not to stop, but she still goes to the end. In the background, the old servant waits with her bag open, impassive, like someone holding a shopping bag, a contrast that exposes the difference between those who still feel and those who have already passed that stage.
Heroism with blood on its hands
Caravaggio refuses the clean narrative of heroism: for him, the courageous act does not cleanse the horror of the act, the two coexist. Judite is a heroine and is terrified, she does good and is covered in blood, and neither cancels the other. It is a worldview that our culture of simplified narratives, with heroes without a doubt and causes without moral cost, still has difficulty accepting, and that Caravaggio already knew, in 1599, to be a lie.
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What is the story of Judith and Holofernes?
It is an episode from the Book of Judith, in the Old Testament. Judith, a widow, infiltrates the camp of the Assyrian general Holofernes, who was besieging her city, seduces him, makes him drunk and beheads him while he sleeps, saving the people.
Why is Caravaggio's Judith different from tradition?
Because, unlike the triumphant and serene Judith of the previous artistic tradition, Caravaggio's has the face of someone who does something necessary and horrible at the same time: the body retreats, but the hand continues until the end.
Where is Caravaggio's painting Judith and Holofernes?
At the Palazzo Barberini, in Rome, headquarters of the Gallerie Nazionali d'Arte Antica, next to another work by Caravaggio, the Narcissus.
Continue to the Caravaggio cluster: Who was Caravaggio? · Palazzo Barberini and Caravaggio · Caravaggio and the Bible
Source class (YouTube): Quem foi Caravaggio (NousCast)