Judith
Jan Massys c. 1565
Judith, as an exemplar of civic virtue triumphant over tyranny, more often than not was depicted as the reluctant assassin. The Decandents had a little fun with her, but they could turn even the Holy Virgin into a strumpet, bless ’em.
“The late nineteenth-century painters, however, unmasked her as a lustful predator and anorexic tigress. Painters and sculptors showed how she had taken man’s head and had stomped on it maliciously with her dainty foot.” (Bram Djikstra, Idols of Perversity) But Judith’s story is a fantastic tale, worthy of the best heroic fiction, she is a post-modern biblical She-Ra, raging against her oppressors, sword in hand.
Judith Beheading Holofernes: Detail
Caravaggio c. 1598
Caravaggio
Correggio
