Category:Judith--art (subject)

Judith (Home Page)

Art (Home Page)

Works of art related to Judith

Overview

Early Renaissance images of Judith tend to depict her as fully dressed and desexualized, but gradually, in later Renaissance artists the desexualized image of Virtue leave room to a more sexual and aggressive woman, a "seducer-assassin". This transition is already apparent in the paintings of Giorgione and Lucas Cranach the Elder.

In the Baroque period, images of Judith began to take on a more violent character, in the works of Caravaggio, Artemisia Gentileschi, and others, who chose to show the actual moment of the killing.

Modern paintings of the scene insist on the erotic aspects of the narrative, often casting Judith nude (Gustav Klimt, Franz Stuck). The image of Judith merged with that of Salome, whose enormous success soon overshadowed any rival characters.