Matthew Whyte (University College Cork)

Artemisia Gentileschi’s Judith Beheading Holofernes

The art of Artemisia Gentileschi could be interpreted as a

response to her surrounding environment and her personal

experience to a greater degree than any other artist of the

Baroque. It is precisely by viewing her art in this way, as

the product of a woman of 17th-Century Italy, which has shaped

the majority of the formidable scholarly attention she has

received in recent years. It is this – her adaptation of self,

of her art and of her figures – upon which this essay shall

focus also. Using Artemisia’s monumental Judith Beheading Holofernes,

located today in the Uffizi Gallery of Florence and executed

around 1620, this essay will explore how, and the extent to

which, Artemisia adapted and modified her female figures,

allowing them to take on connotations which may distort their

femininity, tweaking the impact they have on their beholders.

In this investigation, the question will be raised as to why

it may have been necessary for Artemisia to do this, keeping

in mind, and adhering closely to documentary evidence from her

own times, and the pressures which she indubitably felt as a

woman in an overwhelmingly male-dominated discipline. As it

will be demonstrated, the demands and the prejudices exerted

against her forced Artemisia to adopt a distinct persona which

she carries sometimes with subtlety and sometimes with irony

among her contemporaries, and which bleeds into the heroic

female figures which define her oeuvre. This essay will use the

ideas put forward by Judith Butler in her many studies on

conceptions of gender, namely her article ‘Performative Acts

and Gender Constitution’1, as a lens through which to study

Artemisia’s conception of herself and her female figures.

Butler conceives of gender as being a phenomenon which is

defined and invented through the acts and behaviours of the

subject – a self-stylization as opposed to being something

anatomical which is realised at birth.2

A brief note on scholarly views of Artemisia from recent

years is required here in order to highlight the stance and

direction which the argument of this essay will take. The

large-scale feminist movement of the 1970’s saw published a

flurry of writings on Artemisia which would view her in a

whole new light. Leading up to this, the only in-depth,

scholarly examination of Artemisia and her art had been

undertaken by Roberto Longhi, who claimed that though

Artemisia was a skilled painter, she was, because of her

gender, “intellectually inferior, even to her father”.3 At the

early stages of the development of the scholarship seen in the

1970’s, writers desperately attempted to deviate from the

masculinist bias placed on analyses of Artemisia, which as we

have seen seeped right into the 20th Century. The result was a

body of scholarship which placed the majority of the focus on

biographical details of the artist. These details consisted

mainly of the famous rape trial of Artemisia against her tutor

1 J. Butler, ‘Performative Acts and Gender Constitution: An Essay in Phenomenology and Feminist Theory’, Theatre Journal, Vol. 40, 4, 1988, 519-531.2 Ibid 519.3 S. Scarparo, ‘”Artemisia”: The Invention of a ‘Real’ Woman’, Italica, Vol. 79, 3, 2002, 363.

and aggressor Agostino Tassi, the widespread publication of

which, according to Contini and Solinas, made “…tragic

banality both public and defamatory.”4 This information was

analysed in tandem with only perfunctory nods to Artemisia’s

body of art, creating of her an overtly heroic figure, to be

swept up and consumed among the swiftly growing movement of

feminist art historical scholarship.5 Not only did this detract

from Artemisia’s merits as an artist, but it also led to an

aggrandised and wholly inaccurate conception of Artemisia as

an autonomous, liberated woman in her contemporary society.

Mieke Bal addresses this problem in the introduction to her

recent publication The Artemisia Files: “If the traditional art-

history discourse, which diminishes Artemisia’s merit,

continues to need addressing and redressing, the feminist

revisionist discourse that tends to heroize her also invites

critical reflection.”6 Bal goes on to describe a movement in

the discourse which attempted to re-examine Artemisia in terms

of her skills and abilities as an artist.7 This style of

writing about Artemisia can be most satisfyingly summed up by

referencing the reappraisal of Artemisia and her art

undertaken in Mary Garrard’s monograph Artemisia Gentileschi,8 and,

from the perspective of connoisseurship, in Raymond Ward

Bissell’s catalogue raisonné.9 While writings such as these have

offered an illuminating analysis of Artemisia’s work in a vein4 R. Contini and F. Solinas ed., Artemisia Gentileschi: The Story of a Passion, Milan, 2011, 13.5 M. Garrard, Artemisia Gentileschi: The Image of the Female Hero in Italian Baroque Art, Princeton, 1989, 5.6 M. Bal ed., The Artemisia Files: Artemisia Gentileschi for Feminists and Other Thinking People, Chicago, 2005, x. 7 Ibid.8 Garrard, Artemisia, 1989.

which the work of a female artist of such a period had not

been revealed before, it will be shown in this essay that

there still remains a tendency among scholars to project

Artemisia into modern day views on how women can function in

society. Thus this essay will aim to situate Artemisia firmly

back in her own era and context, that is as a female artist in

17th-Century Italy, in a bid to make clear the adaptations and

contortions she imposes on her female figures, and the

reasoning behind such artistic choices.

Let us begin with Artemisia’s great Judith Beheading

Holofernes. Artemisia chose a well-known biblical narrative,

notably one which is already bound up with questions of

gender-dynamics, and treated it in the quintessential Baroque

manner. The viewer does not observe Judith authoritatively

raising the sword or triumphantly yet furtively stashing the

decapitated head – the deep breath before or the sigh of

relief which follows – as artists such as Donatello and

Mantegna had previously treated the scene. In Artemisia’s

rendition, the viewer is presented with the moment of the most

intense action – the climax of the narrative. Positioning the

beholder in this way – as a very real onlooker to a scene

which is unfolding – the painting solicits an emotional,

almost physically engaged response. The figures burst forth

from a dark and forbidding background; the blackness a frame

for the intensity of the heroine’s face and body; the

whiteness of the bed underneath a mere canvas for the

expressive violence of the spurt of blood. Eve Straussman-9 R.W. Bissell, Artemisia Gentileschi and the Authority of Art: Critical Reading and Catalogue Raisonné, University Park, 1999.

Pflanzer outlines how the taste for theatricality in the

Medici Court in Florence allowed Artemisia to exaggerate this

particular Caravaggesque quality.10 Each subject bears some

form of red in their drapery, a premonition of the extreme

violence which ultimately unites the three figures as the

shockingly crimson blood exudes from the neck of Holofernes to

spatter the hands, arms and busts of Judith and her

maidservant. The artistic sphere into which this painting was

introduced was exclusively dominated by male ideals on how

gender and femininity should operate, making this well-

established scene suddenly problematic, as it was produced by

a woman.11 Being confronted with such images of female

dominance, the male audience constructed an idea of

‘Artemisia’ as an ideal for feminine beauty, where ‘to own an

Artemisia’ made what had become a frighteningly independent

female artist symbolically possessible.12 It was against this

fictive image of beauty which Artemisia had to struggle.13

Thus Artemisia’s Judith can be viewed as a resistance to

the desire among her contemporaries to categorise her within a

stable feminine identity which was consistent with gender

norms.14 Though this is a highly relevant insight by Garrard,

it stills lacks illumination as to exactly how, aside from

choice of narrative, Artemisia uses her female figures to

achieve this. It is at this point that a consideration of10 E. Straussman-Pflanzer, Violence and Virtue: Artemisia Gentileschi’s Judith Slaying Holofernes, New Haven, 2013, 11.11 Ibid 12.12 M. Garrard, Artemisia Gentileschi Around 1622, the Shaping and Re-shaping of an Artistic Identity, California, 2011, 8.13 Ibid.14 Ibid 14.

Butler’s ideas on gender performance and their application to

Artemisia’s grand painting can broaden an appraisal of

Artemisia’s Judith. Butler says of gender as a performative

phenomenon: “This formulation moves the conception of gender

off the ground of a substantial model of identity to one that

requires a conception of a constituted social temporality.

Significantly, if gender is instituted through acts which are

internally discontinuous, then the appearance of substance is

precisely that, a constructed identity, a performative

accomplishment which the mundane social audience, including

the actors themselves, come to believe and to perform in the

mode of belief.”15 These words bear a great significance upon

an examination of how Artemisia constructs her Judith, for one

cannot but notice a distinct deviation from the rhetorical

norm for representing women in this figure.16 Artemisia injects

into her Judith an energy, not to mention certain anatomical

references (to be discussed later), which connote masculinity,

especially among the long-established traditions for

representing women in the 17th Century. Thus the artist allows

her Judith to become a constructed ideal of gender. While still

generally anatomically representative of a woman, Butler’s

ideology outlines that it is not this which defines the gender

of the subject, as can be seen in Butler’s reference to and

expansion on Simone de Beauvoir’s ideas: “When Beauvoir claims

that ‘woman’ is a historical idea and not a natural fact, she

clearly underscores the distinction between sex, as a

biological facticity, and gender, as the cultural

15 Butler, ‘Performative Acts’, 520.16 Garrard, Artemisia Gentileschi Around 1622, 6.

interpretation or signification of that facticity…to be a

woman is to have become a woman…to induce the body to become a

cultural sign, to materialize oneself in obedience to an

historically delimited possibility…”17 While Butler wishes to

critique modern contemporary views on gender and femininity,

these ideas are nonetheless highly applicable to an

interpretation of Artemisia’s Judith. In an inversion of the

process which Butler describes, this being a woman instigating

her gender and femininity through her subjective participation

in a set of cultural norms adhering to femininity, Artemisia

allows her Judith to participate in the cultural norms which in

her time conformed to masculinity.

What then was Artemisia doing to invite such an

interpretation of her work? One may examine how Artemisia

incorporates this performative aspect of gender into her own

subjective persona in order to underline how she allows this

to assimilate into her painted Judith. As Elena Ciletti points

out, the Uffizi Judith has been considered to be the most bound

up with Artemisia’s psychobiography and her connections to her

society and culture.18 The surviving letters of Artemisia to

patrons and friends contain some very interesting insights

into what may be viewed as Artemisia’s performance of her own

gender. In these letters she plays with linguistic nuances to

create a rather gender-ambiguous mystique which would have

served to intrigue her patrons, distracting them from their

aversion to the idea of an autonomous female agent. In a

17 Butler, ‘Performative Acts’, 522.18 E. Ciletti, ‘”Gran Macchina è Bellezza”: Looking at Gentileschi’s Judiths’,in M. Bal ed., The Artemisia Files, 80.

letter to Duke Francesco I d’Este written January 25th 1635,

Artemisia refers to her “meagre talent” and “humble house”.

However, her use of the word casa, in 17th-Century Italy, would

have implied not only her physical house but an entire

genealogical lineage which traditionally would have been

headed by a man. In this way, she promotes her own casa which

would have included her brother Francesco and, by extension,

her father Orazio. A daring move indeed for a woman but one

which would have intrigued the male patron. Similarly, in a

letter to a patron Don Antonio Ruffo written on November 13th

1649, Artemisia wrote while promoting her artistic skills: “…

you will find the spirit of Caesar in this soul of a woman.”

In the original Italian Artemisia, instead of using anima used

animo, endowing herself and her soul with masculine

connotations. This asserts her autonomy to the patron not as

an emancipated female agent, but as a male agent, which would

have appeared much more acceptable to illustrious male patrons

of the time. Artemisia also uses this performance of

masculinity to describe her skill in terms of a male

intellect, which, in accordance with the ideals on artistic

genius and masculinity, would have heightened the perception

of her artistic ability (indeed, one can observe in Garrard’s

book that Baldinucci, critiquing the work of Artemisia,

describes it as the joining of ingegno with the hand of a

woman).19 Rodolfo Maffeis describes this gender ambiguity

cultivated by Artemisia as “…the subtle balance between the

affirmation of the absolute quality of her painting…and the

non-conventionality that such a painting was indeed produced19 Garrard, Artemisia, 1989, 174.

by a woman.”20 One can clearly see in these instances how

Artemisia, in terms of Butler’s ideas, partakes in established

cultural norms relating to masculinity in order to perform a

gender identity which would have promoted her artistic skill

and lessened the impact of her persona as a feminine threat to

male dominance. As Maffeis points out: “…could she have done

anything else?”21

The painting itself is very carefully coded to produce a

similar effect in her Judith as Artemisia creates for herself.

Resulting from its being painted relatively soon after the

famous rape trial of 1612, following which Agostino Tassi

never actually served his sentenced exile, it has proved very

easy for critics to view this painting as an overt act of

vengeance: a woman expressing her desired dominance over man.22

However, we shall see that in fact Artemisia renders this work

to signify something very different. Garrard holds a similar

sentiment to that just described, albeit one with less of a

feminist bias. She describes Artemisia’s Judiths as being “…

armed with swords that cut, weapons they do not hesitate to

use”, going on to describe the Judiths as being real women, not

imaginary, who share in the world of heroic action not as

would-be-men, but simply as women who partake equally in the

human condition.23 Real women indeed, if one were to compare

20 R. Maffeis, '”Of a Tone and a Vigour that Inspire Terror”: Artemisia Gentileschi in Florence 1612-1622’, in Contini and Solinas ed., The Story of aPassion, 65.21 Ibid.22 J. Mann, ‘Artemisia Gentileschi in the Rome of Orazio and the Caravaggesques: 1608-1612’ in Contini and Solinas ed., The Story of a Passion, 58.23 Garrard, Artemisia, 1989, 171.

Artemisia’s Judith with the idealizations of feminine beauty

offered by preceding artists such as Titian, whose Venus of

Urbino is much more an object produced for scopophilic pleasure

than a manifestation of internal subjectivity. However,

Garrard fails to acknowledge the problematic nature of

implying that a woman of 17th-Century Italy may freely allow a

female figure, especially one shown in such a dominant

position over man, to partake equally in the human condition.

This is not an option that would have been available to

Artemisia in the patriarchal context of her contemporary

society.

Artemisia gets around this problem by constructing Judith

in a way which adopts cultural signifiers reserved for

depictions of masculine vigour as opposed to feminine beauty.

The beholder is shown a very different Judith from, for

example, the one which Caravaggio creates in his treatment of

the same narrative. Where his Judith is slight and feminine,

reluctantly guiding the sword with a weak grip and recoiling

as if repulsed by what she is doing, Artemisia’s is strong,

defiant, sure-footed and shows no hesitancy whatsoever. This

is a subject who is in control. Her powerful, muscular arm

pins the great Holofernes to the bed while the other one drags

the sword through the neck of her helpless victim with a self-

assurance which was unprecedented in artistic renditions of

women in Artemisia’s time. Her sleeves are rolled up,

mirroring the laboured contortions of her facial expression

and body language to signify meaningful, self-aware intention

and movement. These features pertain to an artistic language

which, in 17th-Century Italy, was used to depict heroic male

subjects. One can see vestiges of the decisive action of

Gianlorenzo Bernini’s David in the face of Judith, of the

physical and dominating strength of Michelangelo’s David and

Goliath from the Sistine Chapel in the body of the Judith. Even the

hands signify a masculine-oriented language, making ever more

explicit how Artemisia’s Judith corresponds with Butler’s

performative gender. Garrard focuses on hands as defining

characteristics of Artemisia’s portraits, an idea which can

certainly be applied to her heroines also.24 She describes

Artemisia’s painted hands as being “exceptionally strong, more

than adequate for the job to be done.”25 Indeed, Judith’s hands

tell of a strength hitherto unimagined in those of a woman in

17th-Century Italy. Holofernes struggles in vain, his hair

visibly protruding through Judith’s fingers, such is the

strength of her grip. Garrard picks up on an etymological link

in which she describes the breaking of the Judith’s wrist as

conveying the agility of the hand, the word ‘agility’ sharing

a common root with ‘agency’: agere, meaning to set in motion, to

drive or to build. Garrard likens this motif with traditional

representations of male energy: “…their wrists break backward

to show the strain of exertion, just as men’s wrists do.”26

These hands, so far from being manifestations of the passive,

oppressed soul, provide a vision into Artemisia’s performance

of cultural habits pertaining to gender differences which

allow her Judith to connote masculinity.

24 M. Garrard, ‘Artemisia’s hand’, in The Artemisia Files, 1-32.25 Ibid 5.26 Ibid 8.

The performance of cultural habits and norms which

related to masculinity in Artemisia’s contemporary context is

a crucial aspect in an analysis of Artemisia and her art. This

essay has investigated how the adoption of these practices,

according to Judith Butler’s theories on gender performance,

allowed Artemisia to adapt her own persona, and that of her

Judith, to respond to the patriarchal society in which she lived,

and to the male-dominated sphere into which she released her

art. Some possible misconceptions among scholarship about

exactly how Artemisia promoted her own persona and agency,

along with that of her Judith, have been outlined and critically

evaluated to reveal an entirely performed gender identity in

Artemisia and her heroine. By examining documentary evidence

written by Artemisia herself, and by looking in detail at her

representation of Judith, it has been made clear in this essay

that Artemisia adopted an artistic language established for

representations of male subjects, in order to contend with the

pressures she was forced to work under by her patriarchal

surroundings.

Bibliography:

Bal, M., ed., The Artemisia Files: Artemisia Gentileschi for Feminists and

Other Thinking People, Chicago, 2005.

Bissell, R.W., Artemisia Gentileschi and the Authority of Art: Critical

Reading and Catalogue Raisonné, University Park, 1999.

Butler, J., ‘Performative Acts and Gender Constitution:

An Essay in Phenomenology and Feminist Theory’, Theatre

Journal, Vol. 40, 4, 1988, 519-531.

- Gender Trouble: Feminism and the Subversion of Identity, New

York, 1990.

Cohen, S., ‘The Trials of Artemisia Gentileschi: A Rape

as History’, The Sixteenth Century Journal, Vol. 31, 1, 2000, 47-

75.

Contini, R., and Solinas, F., ed., Artemisia Gentileschi: The

Story of a Passion, Milan, 2011.

Garrard, M., Artemisia Gentileschi: The Image of the Female Hero in

Italian Baroque Art, Princeton, 1989.

- Artemisia Gentileschi Around 1622, the Shaping and Re-shaping of an Artistic Identity, Berkeley, 2011.

Mann, J., ed., Artemisia Gentileschi: Taking Stock, Turnhout, 2005.

Scarparo, S., ‘”Artemisia”: The Invention of a ‘Real’

Woman’, Italica, Vol. 79, 3, 2002, 363-378.

Straussman-Pflanzer, E., Violence and Virtue: Artemisia Gentileschi’s

Judith Slaying Holofernes, New Haven, 2013.

Illustrations:

Artemisia Gentileschi, Judith Slaying Holofernes, c.1620, Oil on Canvas, Uffizi Gallery Florence.

Andrea Mantegna, Judith and Holofernes, 1495, Egg-Temperaon Wood, National Galleryof Art, Washington.

Donatello, Judith Slaying Holofernes, 1460, Bronze, Palazzo Vecchio, Florence.

Gianlorenzo Bernini, David, 1623-24, Marble, Galleria Borghese, Rome.

Michelangelo Buonorroti, David and Goliath, 1508-12, Fresco, Sistine Chapel, Rome.

Michelangelo Merisi da Caravaggio, Judith Slaying Holofernes, 1598-99, Oil on Canvas, Palazzo Barberini, Rome.