The Curator's PERSPECTIVE

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Carlo Saraceni was a Venetian artist who spent most of his career in Rome. He arrived there in the late 1590s, when Caravaggio's career was just beginning to flourish. Caravaggio, of course, was the revolutionary artist who took the Italian art scene by storm, and many artists were drawn to his remarkably naturalistic style. Saraceni, however, didn't seem to be that much influenced by Caravaggio, until sometime around 1615, five years after Caravaggio's death. Here he uses typical Caravaggesque conventions: half- length figures painted naturalistically and placed up front in the picture plane. This painting shows a moment in the Old Testament story of the great Jewish heroine, Judith, who literally single-handedly beheads Holofernes, the general of the attacking Assyrian army. Here, having just killed Holofernes, Judith and her maidservant are about to put his head into a sack to return to their besieged city. Judith's act of extreme courage would turn the tide of war. This is just the sort of dramatic story that has fascinated artists for centuries in Europe.

Dominique H. Vasseur

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