“At
last don't you think that the only aim of Giuditta is to move away to
avoid the blood which could stain her dress?” - Roberto Longhi
Sumptuous,
sanguinary,
the
morbidezza of her flesh, her butcher's forearm.
Frowning
deliberation.. They might be, the women,
two
midwives at a bloody accouchement,
lit
by the bale-fire of politicised passion:
Caravaggio's
lantern. Fabric creased, distressed,
shadows
softening brisk violence,
the
spray of arterial blood finely stippling
tribal
vengeance and the secret strength of women.
And
she smote twice upon his neck
with
all her might, and she took away
his
head from him...
(That
blood-speck on her breast!)
There's
a staged composure to it, sculptural
with
a commissioned poise.
The
warm richesse
of the palette
starts
thoughts of the kitchen,
the
muscular rite of dismemberment
undergone
by the boar, ahead of a feast.
Ceremonial
gusto, the carvery's business.
The
circumflex of the maid's eyebrow
says
something about domestic chores,
about
service and the aesthetic poor.
Are
we meant to see, we tarriers in the future,
Christ's
face in the upended satchel
of
Holofernes's? The martyred look.
The
eyes locked on a dream of Justitia...
Or
is it simply a genre-piece, confected
to
the unspoken dictates of Medici taste?