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Judith as Therapist: Gentileschi's Active Heroine

© Jessica Cresseveur

Baroque artist Artemisia Gentileschi came of age in a time and city-state that was kinder and gentler to the aspiring woman artist. Bologna was also home of Lavinia Fontana, Diana Mantuana, and Elisabetta Sirani, Gentileschi's contemporaries, who also enjoyed successful careers as artists.(1)

Despite this advantage, there were certain issues that stacked the proverbial deck against women. One issue involved rape. At the age of nineteen, Gentileschi was raped by Agostino Tassi, who was an assistant to her father Orazio Gentileschi. The case did go to trial but had little to do with the violation of a woman as an autonomous individual. Tassi was also on trial for stealing paintings from Orazio Gentileschi's studio. Central to this case were crimes committed against a man's property-his paintings and his daughter.(2) Eventually the case was dismissed; however, this did little to erase the painful memory of rape for the young Artemisia. While the following argument is a theory, it does help to explain how she coped for the remainder of her life and career.

Anyone who examines a catalogue raisonnée of Gentileschi's work will notice one significant attribute that separates her work from that of her male and female contemporaries-the active heroine. Usually women from Old Testament stories, the degree of involvement and self-control on the part of Gentileschi's heroines are noteworthy. In this paper, I shall focus on her paintings of the Hebrew heroine Judith.

First, let's compare Gentileschi's Judith Beheading Holofernes with Caravaggio's painting of the same subject.

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Both depict the Hebrew heroine Judith beheading the Assyrian general Holofernes, whose army poses a threat to her village. This underlying story is all the two images have in common. From here, Gentileschi and Caravaggio take different approaches.

In the latter example, we can clearly see a rather thin Judith who is portrayed as squeamish and fearful. She backs away from Holofernes, holding the sword in one hand and her enemy's hair in the other, as if consciously trying to not stain her dress, and the look on her face is that of disgust, as if she would rather be elsewhere. If anything, it is the elderly maidservant (represented in the same manner as artists of the day would represent a procuress) who appears determined-her jaw clenched, eyes agape, and hands anxiously gripping the bag that will eventually hold the head of the Assyrian general. In short, Caravaggio depicts Judith as conforming to the passive expectations that were expected of women in most of Europe.