Judith Slaying Holofernes

Artemisia Gentileschi painted Judith Slaying Holofernes around 1613, her first major treatment of the subject that would define her reputation throughout her career. Created in Florence during her time at the Medici court, this version — now in the Uffizi — has been the most discussed and analyzed painting in feminist art history: the physical force with which Judith and her maidservant execute the general, the absence of hesitation or weakness in the two women's concentrated effort, and the directness of Artemisia's tenebristic rendering have all been interpreted in light of her own history of sexual violence. Whatever the biographical dimension, the painting is technically and compositionally one of the most powerful treatments of this subject in Western art.

The gruesome decapitation is rendered with unflinching Caravaggesque realism, the spurting blood and the muscular effort of the two women creating an image of startling physical violence unprecedented in treatments of this subject.