怪女孩‧蛻變中

Title
Judith Beheading Holofernes

Artist
Michelangelo Merisi da Caravaggio

Medium
Oil on canvas

Dimensions
145 x 195 cm

Cultural Association
Italy

Current Site
Galleria Nazionale d'Arte Antica, Rome, Rome, inv. no. 2533

Work Types
Paintings

Period
Baroque Italy

Date
c. 1597 to 1599

     This painting recounts an incident in the history of the Jews. The Jewish window Judith beheaded an Assyrian leader because he had threatened the lives of her people. The high saturation of the colors in this painting gives a serious feeling that corresponds to the heavy theme of the painting: killing. The background is mostly black. The only color in the background is on the upper left side, a partial red curtain. This partial red curtain helps to bring out the bloody atmosphere of event without a lot of blood being painted in the image.

     If we divided the painting vertically from the middle, we got Holofernes on the left hand side and Judith on the right hand side. Look at how the colors are placed. On the left hand side, Holofernes, the upper part is his body, mainly orange color, and the lower part is his bed, white. On the right hand side, Judith, the upper part is her top, mainly white, and the lower part is her skirt, orange. The color of two sides is the opposite mirror of each other. Follow the white, viewers’ attention will be moved from upper right part to lower left part. At the same time the orange color leads our eyes to float from upper left side to lower right side. This forms a cross of the two attention lines. With this color arrangement, Caravaggio is able to focus viewers’ attentions on the cross, where the theme of the painting is, Judith Beheading Holofernes.

     Even with no lighting sources in the painting, Judith Beheading Holofernes has a strong contrast of light and dark. From the distribution of the light we can easily recognize where the artist wanted us to focus. The low value dark color background led viewers’ attentions toward the centre of the painting, where the event is happening. The two main characters, Holoferners and Judith, have most of the light and are painted with high value colors, especially the arms and face of Judith and Holofernes. Compare to the two main characters, the maid of Judith is relatively darker and painted with lower value colors. The only exception is the face and the hands of the maid. Caravaggio highlighted these two parts of the maid so her intense facial expression and the grip of her hand can be noticed by the viewers, both of which emphasized the intensity of the painting.

     There are two different lines in Judith Beheading Holofernes. In the centre of the painting, where most of light is, lines are hard-edged, easy to tell each object, each shape, one from another. Hard-edged lines help to depict a clear image. For example, we can see the expression of the characters distinctly, such as the shock and the struggle expressions on Holofernes’ face and the intense feeling that showed on the face of Judith’s maid. As we move outwards, the lines turned more soft-edged. These soft-edged lines blurred the less important part of the characters into the environment, finally into the dark background. The back neckline of Judith and the lower body part of Holofernes are two good examples of these soft-edged lines.

     Judith Beheading Holofernes has a good space sense. We can easily recognize that the maid is closer to the front than Judith by the overlapping part of the two characters. Also Judith’s bending hand and Holofernes’ body position showed that Holofernes was pulled toward to the viewers. The entire painting presents with the right hand side closer to viewers than the left hand side. In other words, the viewers are placed closer to Judith as if we are standing besides her like the maid is. Watching and supporting her action. There is also another interesting part about the space in this painting, the space between Holofernes and Judith. In real world, we usually cut things with our arm bended inward a little, because that way it’s easier to put forth our strength. But in the painting, we can see that although Judith pull Holofernes’ head toward her but the knife arm of Judith is stretch straight all the way and her upper body bend backward as if she wants to keep the maximum space between herself and Holofernes. Her facial expression showed clear dislike which also supports this feeling.