‘Judith and Holofernes’: The Metamorphosis Of Female Empowerment
Gentileschi, Klimt and Elizabeth I.
“My illustrious lordship, I’ll show you what a woman can do.”
– Artemisia Gentileschi
The story of Judith and Holofernes has been popular with artists since the Renaissance. It was a kind of female version of David and Goliath, with the little guy — now not so little woman (and maid)— triumphantly turning the (patriarchal) power structure on its head by aesthetically removing the head of Holofernes.
This original proto-political context had been infused into the famous bronze sculpture by Donatello, which bears the implied allegorical subtext that was inescapable in Early Renaissance Florence, that of the courage of the commune against tyranny.
It feels somewhat similar to an allegory for the women's movement in modernity — the courage of the individual woman against male sexual violence.
The story of Judith and Holofernes is found among the apocryphal works of the Septuagint, the Greek translation of Hebrew Scripture, which formed the basis for the Old Testament. According to the story, a military commander named Holofernes had been dispatched by King Nebuchadnezzar on a punitive expedition against Israel. The Babylonians soon besieged the Israelite town of Bethulia, where…
