Judith Beheading Holofernes
Caravaggio (1599)
Caravaggio’s Judith Beheading Holofernes stages the biblical execution as a shocking present-tense event, lit by a raking beam that cuts figures from darkness. The <strong>red curtain</strong> frames a moral spectacle in which <strong>virtue overthrows tyranny</strong>, as Judith’s cool determination meets Holofernes’ convulsed resistance. Radical <strong>naturalism</strong>—from tendon strain to ribboning blood—makes deliverance feel material and irreversible.
