| In the bible Judith was a queen who's people were being warred on by Holophernes, she saved her people by sleeping with him and then cutting his head off. During the Rennaisance bible scenes were all the rage for painters, so there are a lot of paintings&.of this scene, but the best are by Artemesia Gentilschi, which are really bloody. She's a favorite of feminist art historians, and there's lots of discussion on her life, she made some great paintings but everyone seems to focus on the fact that she was r.aped, especially the movie made about her which made the rape into a romance gone wrong... who knows, she was 17, it was a different time and a long time ago, we can only speculate, and really, why should we? It is her art that is important. I wouldn't wa.nt to be remembered for the worst moment in my life, would you?
Her paintings are BEAUTIFUL and in a time when women didn't have much public voice she painted the same biblical scenes as many male artists were painting, and without any kind of feminist |