Judith and the New Frau in German Art

Who Assassinated Holofernes?

The assassination of Holofernes is depicted in the Old Testament in the Book of Judith as an act of trust in God carried out through Judith. The Book of Judith tells the story of the Assyrians laying siege to the Israelites. The Israelites are afraid, while Judith, characterized as beautiful, chaste of full of trust in God, alone hatches a plan to settle the matter. She leaves with her maid Bethulia for Holofernes’ camp to ingratiate herself to him. He becomes drunk both by alcohol and her beauty. In his intoxicated state, he becomes her victim in his tent that night, as she decapitates him, causing the Assyrians to scatter in fear now that their leader has been killed. She returns to Israel and remains chaste. Two works of art that depict this story are “Judith Slaying Holofernes” by Artemisia Gentileschi (1614) and Franz Stuck’s “Judith and Holorfernes” (1927). Both works depict Judith in a violent, sensual way—the main difference beaing that whereas the Baroque artist Gentileschi shows Judith revealing only a modicum of bosom while decapitating Holofernes, Stuck shows Judith as completely nude wielding a sword about to do the slaying.

Gentileschi was a Baroque Italian artist, who painted during the time of the Church’s Counter-Reformation, an era in which the Roman Catholic Church was in an ideological and military battle with the Protestant Reformation. The Baroque movement was known for its dramatic characterization of people, themes, and events. Works of art during this period often reinforced Catholic notions. Gentileschi’s painting, which hangs in The Uffizi museum in Florence, Italy, shows the dramatic moment at which Judith killed the enemy of the Israelites.

https://www.uffizi.it/en/artworks/judith-beheading-holofernes

Stuck was a modern German artist who followed in style of Art Nouveau and the work of Gustave Klimt. He often depicted women in the nude to create sensual images, but his works are also more impressionistic than that of the realism that characterized the Baroque. His painting was collected by the National Gallery of Art in Washington, D.C., where many different styles of art have been collected and shared with other galleries around the world for exhibitions.

https://www.artsy.net/artwork/franz-von-stuck-judith-and-holofernes

Gentileschi uses light and shadow to heighten the dramatic elements of the scene, a technique that calls back to the chiaroscuro method of other painters, like Rembrandt and Caravaggio. In Gentileschi’s work, the light emphasizes Judith’s bosom and Holoferenes’ shoulders and arms as he struggles against the weight of Bethulia who holds him down while Judith clasps him by the head and uses the sword at his neck. Blood is seen spurting from his neck. Color is used to highlight Judith’s beauty (her gown and jewelry), while Holofernes is covered from the waist down by a red fabric that thematically emphasizes his assassination. The bed linens are silver to contrast with the red blood dripping down their edge. The background is entirely black to emphasize the drama unfolding in the foreground. Line is used to draw the viewer’s eyes to the killing: Judith’s arms lead the viewer to the head of Holofernes; the sword leads them along with Holoferne’s upstretched arms back to Bethulia; the maid’s shoulder leads the eyes back to Judith, whose bosom leads them back to her arms.

Stuck’s painting is more impressionistic, but also makes use of color and line to emphasize the difference between Judith and Holofernes as well as to direct the eyes. Judith’s skin is pale, whereas Holofernes is dark almost like a demon. Her leg is upon the bed leading the eyes to Holofernes, stretched out below her. His arm leads the eyes back to the edge of the painting where the sword picks them up and takes them back to Judith’s bare top. The blue sheets covering Holofernes’ lower half are vivid like a river, separating the two.

Gentileschi’s painting was relevant in his time because it reinforced a major biblical narrative about trusting in God to help those who help themselves. One of the themes of the Counter-Reformation was that the Roman Catholic Church needed to act and respond to the threat that the Protestant Reformation represented. Judith’s story would have been seen as an inspirational story because she took action against the enemy when few others would (Wade).

Stuck’s painting was relevant in his time because in Germany, the “New Frau”—New Woman—was a type that had come about in the arts: the “New Frau” represented women typically as bold, often as seductive and without remorse; as independent and dominant (West). In Germany, many women were taking on new personas in the 20th century to embody this spirit of the new woman of the age. Judith in Stuck’s painting would have been seen as echoing the spirit of the age of the “New Frau”—a spirit in which women used their charms of seduction freely.