A spotlight from the upper-left-hand corner sheds light onto a grisly scene. A young, smooth-faced woman is cutting off a muscular man’s head. Her brow is furrowed, but not from disgust. She instead looks confused, as if she isn’t sure whether or not she’s correctly decapitating him. Her posture sends a similar message of confusion. Her powerful arms are intentional, deliberate in their actions. She grabs a chunk of the man’s hair with her left hand, exposing his neck, while using her right to force down the blade. While some of her actions are purposeful and determined, she is also recoiling, her shoulders thrown back, trying to get as far away from the scene while still performing her task. The decapitation seems dutiful; something that must be done even though she does not want to do it. To the women’s left, an old attendant clutches a dirty brown rag, ready to clean up the mess once the deed has been done. His face is only half visible, which indicates he is probably not a major figure in this story. The attendant’s posture shows that he is waiting eagerly, ready to help when he is needed. The dying man, who I believe is Holofernes, has a look of surprise on his face. He is lying on his stomach, apparently unclothed, clutching his bed sheets with one hand and propping himself up with the other. His vulnerable position on the bed, surprised facial expression and muscular build suggest that the girl (who is probably Judith) and her attendant probably waited until he was sleeping before attacking him. They couldn’t have taken him any other way. Another possible explanation is that Judith seduced Holofernes to get close to him. Either way, Holofernes was unprepared for the attack.
In the Biblical story of Judith and Holofernes, Judith got Holofernes drunk before she was able to behead him. She knew her people, the Jews, were badly outnumbered by the armies of Holofernes and she could only defeat them through her cunning. According to the story, the sight of their commander’s bloodstained head caused the armies of Holofernes to flee.
From the story, I know that Judith had a job to do. In order to save her people, she had to defeat the armies of Holofernes and the only way she knew how was to take advantage of him while he was disarmed and vulnerable. Judith found no pleasure in the act, but wasn’t entirely repulsed either. The sense of duty which motivated her actions are seen within Caravaggio’s work. Judith is slightly recoiled, but her actions remained deliberate and purposeful. We also know from the story that she first got him drunk before attacking him. In my interpretation, I thought she may have seduced him first. (Caravaggio thought similarly, since the original painting showed Judith’s bare chest, which was later covered up). In any case, Caravaggio was able to convey the essential points of the story through the posturing and facial expressions of his figures. His paintings speak for themselves.
No comments:
Post a Comment