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The grisly subject portrayed in this candlelit scene was one of the most
frequently painted by Italian Renaissance and Baroque artists. Derived from the
apocryphal Book of Judith, the story describes a wise and attractive Jewish
widow who contrives a plan to save her besieged city from the Assyrians. With
her maid, Judith pretends to desert her town and visits the general Holofernes
in his encampment. Invited to spend the night, Judith instead takes advantage
of Holofernes' drunkenness and, while he sleeps, cuts off his head. Carlo
Saraceni, who painted the scene many times, depicts the moment when Judith
deposits the general's head into a bag held open by her maid. Judith manages to
return to her city and, when Holofernes' head is displayed on the city walls,
the Assyrians flee.
Saraceni exploits the story's drama not by showing explosive action, but by
using dramatic chiaroscuro to illuminate the
nighttime scene and suggest the tension of the moment. It was a technique that
he and many others had learned from Caravaggio (1573 - 1610), a charismatic
Roman painter who often employed sharp contrasts of light and dark to great
effect. Although born in Venice, Saraceni had settled in Rome by 1598 and
quickly began receiving commissions. In fact, it was Saraceni who was called
upon to produce a more conventional substitute for Caravaggio's infamous
Death of the Virgin (1606), which was painted for - but rejected by - the
church of Santa Maria della Scala in Rome.
Eileen Carr
SUGGESTED READING:
Charles Dempsey, Keith Christiansen, Richard E. Spear, and Erich Scheier.
The Age of Caravaggio. New York: The Metropolitan Museum of Art, 1985.
