Saturday, October 25, 2014

SOLIMENA'S JUDITH

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The Triumph of Judith



SOLIMENA’S JUDITH
by Susan Nurse

The reinstallation of the Fountain Court after the installation of the 18th-century Italian Organ has brought works from the Baroque Period together, including our Francesco Solimena, The Triumph of Judith (77.109).  The painting, full of the drama of subject matter and the use of chiaroscuro and undulating forms is very representative of Baroque style.  So who are the figures in this dramatic painting?  Is that a woman holding a man’s severed head in the center of this work of art?  No wonder she has everyone’s attention.

This is Judith, the female heroine from the apocryphal “Book of Judith.”  Her story is extraordinary, and has the makings of a great source for visual images. We are seeing the end of the story. Judith has charmed the Assyrian general Holofernes, been admitted to his tent, and got him drunk. Then comes her triumph over the enemy of her town, the Assyrians, through the murder of Holofernes.  This apocryphal tale is of a Jewish widow who, with the help of God, slays the general by decapitating him with his own sword, thereby saving her own town of Bethulia and the entire state of Israel.  The word Bethulia, in Hebrew, is understood to mean house of the Lord, that is, the Temple, while the name Judith alludes to the Jewish people as a whole.  The moralistic message is of obedience to God's law and unwavering faith, unlike the town elders who offered to surrender the town.
Her story had been used in medieval times, usually depicted in narratives, and like other Old Testament figures, Judith and her triumph over Holofernes was interpreted as a pre-figuration of Mary. 

It was during the Counter Reformation that the heroism of Judith took on a new importance.  Holofernes had to die because as a Gentile, he had attempted to force the Jews to disobey the one true God.  Judith's fatal blow was done for the greater glory of this God, a deed highly meaningful to the resurgence of the Catholic Church over the heresy of Protestantism. 

It should not be surprising, looking at Solimina's work here, that his early training was in the elaborate ceiling frescos done by his mentor, Luca Giordano.  (Note that The Entombment by  Giordano hangs next to the Solimena in the Fountain Court).  Notice how, in the painting, we seem to be climbing a steep hill or stairway, looking up to see Judith with Holofernes's head held in triumph against the sky.  Regardless of the turmoil and the bodies swirling around her, Judith stands in a dramatic gesture, allowing us to focus on her and her prize. 

Solimena lived from 1657-1747 and brought great fame to the Naples area during his lifetime.  Arriving in the city in 1674, Solimena at 17 was seen as a prodigy.  His early work showed his preference for the flowing robes and gestures of the
painterly style with complex spatial arrangements that resulted from his father’s training.  It was Solimena’s introduction to
Giordano that brought a new solidity of forms and an increase in contrasts of light and shadow that are reflected in his mature work, including our Judith.  Another influence on Solimena was his trip to Rome in 1700.  His exposure to Guido Reni brought more classicized elements to his work.
                                                
These changes in style can be seen in Solimena’s most monumental work, the ceiling fresco in San Domenico Maggiore, Triumph of the Dominican Order of 1709. The Madonna points to St. Dominic, with a gesture clearly derivative of Giordano’s 1704 Triumph of Judith (fresco Chapel of the Treasury in the Certosa di S. Martino, Naples).  This gesture introduces the Saint to the Holy Trinity, while the Virtues and angels drive out heretics, who literally fall towards the viewer.  The hand of the Madonna is a focal point, just as is Judith’s hand in our picture, painted less than 20 years later.

Solimena used hands throughout our work to express surprise and wonder at the amazing spectacle before them: Judith, the widow of Bethuli, has returned to the town with the head of the Assyrian general!!  Solimena emphasized Judith's heroism by depicting her as an ordinary woman, not overly strong.  In this way, he emphasized the core of the story, that the hand of God must have helped her accomplish such an amazing feat. 

Solimena has created a variety of people who look up to Judith, both literally and figuratively, setting her off as a universal heroic figure.  Young and old, male and female, with different races represented, all swirl around the base of our painting, their gestures and movement further emphasized by the movement of the drapery of their clothes.   Even the elders, who had been willing to surrender the town, are awe- struck with the event that has taken place. They can no longer deny that a lone woman has done what they were unable to do. Through faith in God, she saved the town and Israel itself. The proof is before them.

Solimena did four other versions of this same story, one of which is now in Gemaldegalerie of the Kunsthistorisches Museum, Vienna.  That work, dated 1730, is more derivative of his ceiling works.  But while ceiling size helped to dissipate a large number of figures, the number of figures in a work  similar in size to our own painting makes the painting appear  somewhat cluttered.  In MAG’s painting Judith is not accentuated to the degree necessary to understand the significance of her act of courage and the drama of the moment.

This painting is representative of the power of the Baroque style at the hands of a Neapolitan master, Francesco Solimena, and the representation of Judith as a heroic figure.

Sources- Curatorial files; Carmen Bambach “A Taste for Angels: Neapolitan Painting in North America, 1650-1750”; Stocker, Margarita, Judith, Sexual Warrior: Women and Power in Western Culture, Yale University Press, 1998.

Susan Nurse is MAG’s Visual Resources Coordinator


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