Judith is a figure throughout Art History who has an archive of being presented in ways that reference virtuous or sexual power. She is depicted differently as a saint and then as relying on erotic nature to lead to her triumph over Holofernes. In the 17th century, Judith fell into the iconography of the femme fatale; her sexuality was never denied before, but this changed to portray the erotic and destructive. The femme fatale is a name used to describe the woman in art who is given a nature of destruction that is rooted in sexual power and nature. This portrayal is commonly seen in the depictions of women in the Judeo-Christian tradition. Women such as Salome, Judith, Eve, and the Madonna are presented as erotic figures who bring power and death. The figure Lady Lilith alludes to the start of the tradition of magnifying the sin of a woman into an entire sexual and destructive intent; the sexual symbols are used to create this tradition of femme fatales. Amid 17th-century artists referencing the same symbols across the depictions of femme fatales like Salome, Judith, and Eve, Benjamin-Constant is referencing something else. His Judith is more a hero than a femme fatale.
Lady Lilith
Dante Gabriel Rossetti, Henry Treffry Dunn
1867
Watercolor and Gouache
08.162.1
This painting was seen as the start of the tradition of the femme fatale. Lilith was a figure from common Jewish mythology. She was Adam’s first wife but was thrown out because she refused to obey him. Rossetti shows her to be sexually available in the seductive way her neck and shoulder and exposed and open to the viewer. Her flowing, free hair becomes an important symbol of sexuality. It shows her untamed nature and how her beauty is waiting to ensnare and bind men. Long, flowing hair is referenced in other femme fatales to support the idea of women’s sexuality as uncontrollable, primal, and a trap to men.
The Apparition
Gustave Moreau
1876-1877
Oil on Canvas
1943.268
(Harvard Art Museums)
Salome is another figure of a biblical temptress. Her clothes reference her erotic dancing and her motion of pointing at the Head of John the Baptist tells of her narrative. Historically, Salome was the step-daughter of Herod who used her sexual nature to grant her mother’s wishes of the death of John the Baptist. This is a very closed-off composition, which in a way references the way these sexual women were seen as trapped in their nature and bent on destruction. Visually, Mareau follows the popular portrayal of the femme fatale in a frontal, erect pose, with long flowing hair.
Die Suendo
Franz Von Stuck
1908
Oil on canvas
2017.250
Franz Von Stuck painted The Sin as part of his bigger painting Inferno. Eve is pictured here in a frontal, erect posture. The painting is dark and shallow, as the colors of the serpent and Eve’s long, flowing hair create contrast with her pale torso, chest, and face. The presence of the serpent is another way Von Stuck gives a symbol of the erotic nature. The picture of Eve as a femme fatale is important because it takes the act of the first sin and freezes it as a portrayal of the uncontrolled woman as destructive. Eve is a sexual figure in this painting because of her hair, her frontal exposure, and the erotic presence of the snake wrapping around her.
Madonna
Edvard Munch
1895-1902
Lithograph and Woodcut
114.1956
(Museum of Modern Art)
Edvard Munch’s Madonna is a reference to the Virgin Mary as an erotic nude. In this painting, we can see the frontal pose and the flowing hair as ways Munch is aiding the idea of Mary as a femme fatale. Quoting the Virgin Mary as a woman who uses her sexuality for destruction encompasses the idea that the femme fatale does not only apply to sexually promiscuous women in the Judeo-Christian tradition. Eve and Salome were both seen as women who followed the sexual pursuit of something, Mary was traditionally pictured as pious.
Judith and the Head of Holofernes
Gustave Klimt
1901
Oil on canvas
(Belvedere Vienne)
In Jewish tradition, Judith was the biblical heroine who decapitated Holofernes to protect her city. She is an example of virtue and piety. However, Klimt chose to create an image of her that is blatantly sexual. Judith is a popular figure throughout the past of art. She is seen as a symbol of chastity and justice, though her sexual nature is not denied. Again, Klimt mimics the femme fatale tradition of a frontal, erect pose with untamed hair. Here, Judith is pictured with an open mouth, which is also a common characteristic of the erotic and sexual. Her open mouth creates a sensual expression of pleasure. This relates to the theme of erotic women pursuing their pleasure and that leads to death. Judith is visually beheaded by her golden necklace. The femme fatale in art was more than the warning that erotic women have sexual power that traps men and leads to their fatality, but also that the female pursuit of pleasure will lead to the death and destruction of herself.
Judith
Benjamin Constant
ca. 1886
Oil on canvas
58.185
Within the same period as the femme fatales above, there is the Judith of Benjamin Constant. This painting is also of a woman in a frontal pose, but here there is no curve in her body like the stances of the artworks above. Benjamin Constant references a more masculine and heroic form. Judith here is not available and untamed like the Lady Lilith, Salome, or Judith and the Head of Holofernes. Her hair is present, but tied back and not emphasized against the background. Constant uses only her sword to tell of her narrative. He does not reference the motifs surrounding the femme fatale of that time and quotes a more heroic rendition. There is not the primal connection of pleasure to the death of herself or another but she still holds the power of life and death in her sword. Judith by Benjamin Constant pushes away from the erotic idea of sexual destruction and focuses on the masculine, heroic portrayal of a woman who leads to the fatality of a man but also a nature beyond that destruction.
References
Allen, Virginia M. 1983. The Femme Fatale: Erotic Icon. Troy, N.Y.: Whitston Pub. Co. https://archive.org/details/femmefataleeroti0000alle.
Efthimiadis-Keith, Helen. “Text and Interpretation : Gender and Violence in the Book of Judith, Scholarly Commentary and the Visual Arts from the Renaissance Onward.” Old Testament Society of South Africa 15, no. 1 (January 2002): 64–84. https://doi.org/10.10520.
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