Judith and her Handmaid
This paper will be on the painting Judith and her Handmaid with the Head of
Holofernes (Detroit Institute of Art). Painted by Artemisia Gentileschi in 1625, the painting depicts the story of Judith, who beheads Holofernes while he is passed out because he is about to destroy her home. Gentileschi paints Judith and her handmaiden in the moment after the beheading, stashing Holoferne’s head in a sack. I selected this work because of Gentileschi being a popular female artist, and being a female myself, there is importance in having female representation in a profession that has historically been predominantly male. Not only is Gentileschi a notable female artist, she is known for depicting female figures, especially ones in biblical stories as heroic, strong and realistic figures. This is visible from the softness of skin, to the clear knowledge of female anatomy depicted in detail, to the emphasis of strength and suffering or former suffering. This would interest someone who wants to know more about seventeenth century culture because of the notion of Pictorial Reform, when the Catholic Church wanted religious art to be simple, and to have a clear story or meaning. We can draw conclusions that Gentileschi uses a combination of the elements of light and dark, lines and shape to put a clear and easy to follow focus on the biblical story, strength and heroism of Judith.
Description and Formal Analysis.
Judith and her Maidservant with the Head of Holofernes is large oil on canvas by Italian artist, Artemisia Gentileschi. Although the work’s dimensions aren’t listed on the card, this work is of life size with an estimated measurement of 6 by 4.5 feet. The painting surrounded by a gold frame that ha...
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...d in both Reni and Gentileschi is idealization of the figures and how they are depicted as young and beautiful. There is a lack of accuracy in the storyline of Reni’s work, while in Gentileschi, the alertness of Judith seen by her hand gesture and her head turned away. The storyline in Gentileschi’s piece is also easy to follow because of the focus on the gestures of Judith and the Handmaid through the presence of light and dark shading. While in Reni’s the composition as a whole lacks a clear focus in the story line because of the monkeys, the cupids, and the extra figures added to the painting that possibly couldn’t have been present in the story. While, Gentileschi uses the combination of light and dark and shapes and lines in the composition of her painting to focus us in on the story, and the main character and how she is depicted in the story, as a heroine.
It is understandable that Vout took on a discursive tone when attempting to explain her point of view regarding the depictions of the youths in the Hellenistic age. The subject’s content is far too broad to be encompassed within a small range of thinking. This observation is evident in Vout’s temporary straying from the main points to wider subjects; however, she always brings her tangents back to the principal objectives. The primary ideas that she focuses on concern the rendering of children in art forms during Hellenistic times. This idea is then divided into differen...
Gentileschi’s Judith Slaying Holofernes epitomizes the style of artwork during the Italian Baroque era. By using a Catholic subject and key elements and techniques essential to baroque art such as chiaroscuro and foreshortening, she was able to create a piece that gushes drama and realism. Without the use of all of these elements the effect would be lost, but instead the piece is one that moves the viewer with its direct and gritty realism of the religious subject, evoking emotion in a way that leaves the viewer in awe.
I chose to analyze the The Family, 1941 portray and The Family, 1975 portray, both from Romare Bearden, for this essay because they are very similar paintings but at the same time very different. To write a critical analyzes it was necessary to choose two different paintings that had similar characteristics. The text about critical comparison said that to compare things they have to be similar, yet different, and that’s what these paintings look to me. As I had already written an analysis of The Family, 1941 portray I chose to analyze and compare The Family, 1975 this time. Both works have a lot of color in it and through the people’s faces in the pictures we can feel the different emotions that the paintings are conveying.
By most accounts, the year 1500 was in the midst of the height of the Italian Renaissance. In that year, Flemmish artist Jean Hey, known as the “Master of Moulins,” painted “The Annunciation” to adorn a section of an alter piece for his royal French patrons. The painting tells the story of the angel Gabriel’s visit to the Virgin Mary to deliver the news that she will give birth to the son of God. As the story goes, Mary, an unwed woman, was initially terrified about the prospects of pregnancy, but eventually accepts her fate as God’s servant. “The Annunciation” is an oil painting on a modest canvas, three feet tall and half as wide. The setting of the painting is a study, Mary sitting at a desk in the bottom right hand corner reading, and the angel Gabriel behind her holding a golden scepter, perhaps floating and slightly off the canvas’s center to the left. Both figures are making distinct hand gestures, and a single white dove, in a glowing sphere of gold, floats directly above Mary’s head. The rest of the study is artistic but uncluttered: a tiled floor, a bed with red sheets, and Italian-style architecture. “The Annunciation” was painted at a momentous time, at what is now considered the end of the Early Renaissance (the majority of the 15th Century) and the beginning of the High Renaissance (roughly, 1495 – 1520). Because of its appropriate placement in the Renaissance’s timeline and its distinctly High Renaissance characteristics, Jean Hey’s “Annunciation” represents the culmination of the transition from the trial-and-error process of the Early Renaissance, to the technical perfection that embodied the High Renaissance. Specifically, “Annunciation” demonstrates technical advancements in the portrayal of the huma...
GRISELDA POLLOCK, review of “Artemisia Gentileschi: The Image of the Female Hero in Italian Baroque Art”, THE ART BULLETIN SEPTEMBER 1990 VOLUME, LXXII NUMBER
Artemisia Gentileschi is considered to be one of the great painters of the Baroque era, and is especially venerated for her mastery of the Caravaggesque style. Her power as an artist comes not only from her technical and creative capabilities, but also from her acute understanding of and involvement in theoretical discourse on painting and the genius of the artist. Known for her vigorous depictions of powerful Biblical heroines that do not conform to typical images of femininity and through the intensity of the Caravaggesque style, Gentileschi’s work can be considered quintessentially Baroque.
Artemisia Gentileschi (1593 – 1652), daughter of a well-known Roman artist, was one of the first women to become recognized in her time for her work.. She was noted for being a genius in the world of art. But because she was displaying a talent thought to be exclusively for men, she was frowned upon. However by the time she turned seventeen she had created one of her best works. One of her more famous paintings was her stunning interpretation of Susanna and the Elders. This was all because of her father. He was an artist himself and he had trained her and introduced her to working artists of Rome, including Michelangelo Merisi da Caravaggio. 1. In an era when women artists were limited to painting portraits, she was the first to paint major historical and religious scenes. After her death, people seemed to forget about her. Her works of art were often mistaken for those of her fathers. An art historian on Artemisia, Mary D. Garrard notes that Artemisia “has suffered a scholarly neglect that is unthinkable for an artist of her caliber.” Renewed and long overdue interest in Artemisia recently has helped to recognize her as a talented renaissance painter and one of the world’s greatest female artists. She played a very important role in the renaissance.
The first painting analyzed was North Country Idyll by Arthur Bowen Davis. The focal point was the white naked woman. The white was used to bring her out and focus on the four actual colored males surrounding her. The woman appears to be blowing a kiss. There is use of stumato along with atmospheric perspective. There is excellent use of color for the setting. It is almost a life like painting. This painting has smooth brush strokes. The sailing ship is the focal point because of the bright blue with extravagant large sails. The painting is a dry textured flat paint. The painting is evenly balanced. When I look at this painting, it reminds me of settlers coming to a new world that is be founded by its beauty. It seems as if they swam from the ship.
Imagine pondering into a reconstruction of reality through only the visual sense. Without tasting, smelling, touching, or hearing, it may be hard to find oneself in an alternate universe through a piece of art work, which was the artist’s intended purpose. The eyes serve a much higher purpose than to view an object, the absorptions of electromagnetic waves allows for one to endeavor on a journey and enter a world of no limitation. During the 15th century, specifically the Early Renaissance, Flemish altarpieces swept Europe with their strong attention to details. Works of altarpieces were able to encompass significant details that the audience may typically only pay a cursory glance. The size of altarpieces was its most obvious feat but also its most important. Artists, such as Jan van Eyck, Melchior Broederlam, and Robert Campin, contributed to the vast growth of the Early Renaissance by enhancing visual effects with the use of pious symbols. Jan van Eyck embodied the “rebirth” later labeled as the Renaissance by employing his method of oils at such a level that he was once credited for being the inventor of oil painting. Although van Eyck, Broederlam, and Campin each contributed to the rise of the Early Renaissance, van Eyck’s altarpiece Adoration of the Mystic Lamb epitomized the artworks produced during this time period by vividly incorporating symbols to reconstruct the teachings of Christianity.
... the way that the artwork is resembled in the religious background of the gospel but reconstructed in to a celebrating impression. Throughout the fresco painting it depicts the myth of the Christ’s three fold temptations relating back to the article that “distinction between fresco and panel painting is sharp, and that painters are seen as competitors amongst themselves discriminating also, between the difference in genuine attempts in being better then the other.” Baxandall, “Conditions of Trade,” 26. in relation, the painting concerns the painter’s conscious response to picture trade, and the non-isolation in pictorial interests.
Bartolomeo also establishes the foreground with a vertical tapestry and shows the Virgin adoring her child in contemplation; however, the tapestry lacks the pomegranate and ornate decoration of the original work and the admired child has been removed from his mother’s lap and placed on a stone ledge. And although the Virgin Mary remains the pyramidal anchor of the work, Bartolomeo only paints the upper half of the body and diminishes the structural effect. These differences both highlight the relationship between the Virgin and her child Bartolomeo portrays and the unique characteristics of The Virgin and Child Enthroned by the Master of the Embroidered Foliage. For by expanding the context in which the Virgin represents the structural pyramid of a work, the Master’s emphasis on structural foundation and connection between earth and heaven becomes increasingly clear. In other words, only by examining an outside work does the Virgin’s naturalistic cloak connecting the fertile garden with the heavenly tapestry dominate the viewing experience. In addition, the lack of urbanization in the background of The Virgin Adoring the Child emphasizes the timelessness of the original work. For with the exception of an abandoned
Arnolfini Double Portrait was painted in 1434, by Jan van Eyck; who hard already gained attention and admiration through earlier works, such as the Ghent Altarpiece. The subject of Arnolfini Double Portrait, also known as The Arnolfini Portrait, is the italian merchant Giovanni Di Nicolao Arnolfini and his first wife inside of a room filled with objects teeming with symbolism. The depth is divided into a familiar three layers, a foreground, which is composed of a dog and a pair of sandals; a middle ground which features the two main subjects of the painting; and background, which contains the rest of the objects in the painting. The painting is symmetrical and the vanishing point is not far from the center of the painting along the horizontal. The paining is filled with symbolism and items meant to portray the subjects' distinguished lifestyle. Although, what some of the objects actually symbolize can be interpreted in slightly varying ways. To begin, many of the ob...
He mostly painted ordinary people and sometimes even included religious figures as those ordinary people, which had never been seen before. He is also known for using tenebrism, which is a style that uses strong contrasts of light and dark. In his piece, “The Calling of St. Matthew” uses a beam of light coming through a window right above Jesus’ head to illuminate the other men sitting at a table. “Christ’s face and hand in the gloomy interior so that we see the precise moment of his calling to Matthew and witness a critical piece of religious history and personal conversion” (665). This aspect of his artwork impacted Artemisia Gentileschi the most. Gentileschi, one of the first woman artists to become well known, was known for painting biblical heroines, women, or her in a lead role. Her piece, “Judith and Her Maidservant with the Head of Holofernes” she uses tenebrism in a dramatic way. “The hushed, candlelit atmosphere-tenebrism made intimate-creates a mood of mystery that conveys Judith’s complex emotions with unsurpassed understanding”(669). The candlelight is used to highlight the facial expressions of the two women. The candlelight doesn’t show what is keeping the attention of the women, which adds to the drama created by the light because the viewer doesn’t know what is in the
“The “Portrait of a woman with a man at a casement” dates from around 1440-1444. It is made with tempera on wood by a Florentine artist, Fra Filippo Lippi. The painting is 64,1 x 41,9 cm. A very interesting detail is the message on the cuff of the woman, reading the word “lealtà” which is Italian for loyalty. The painting is part of the Marquand Collection and is to be found at the Metropolitan Museum of Art, where it was given as a gift by Henry G. Marquand in 1889.”
Perspective is based on Jesus in this painting due to his outward “radiant glow of divine light” (1) extending to the other people in the painting. The main focus is on Jesus and the rest of the figures are diffused in an outward fashion from Jesus himself. The artist himself expresses an emphasis on individualism by implementing himself within the painting by appearing “twice in the Last Judgement: in the flayed skin which Saint Bartholomew is carrying in his left hand, and the figure… who is looking encouragingly at those rising from their graves” (2). This is an action that only a Renaissance painter would do, which is displaying individuality through a self-portrait because of the possibility of being judged for selfishness. Light and shadowing is prominent within the art which is shown in the painting when the lighter, more brighter colors are focused in the middle and then fade into darker tones while moving outward into the