Caravaggio's 1599 painting, "Judith beheading Holofernes" is the focal point of a small but very interesting exhibition at the Minneapolis Institute of Art. (The show will remain on display until August 20, 2023). The title picture is handsomely displayed with about fifteen other art works on the same subject. It is now de rigueur to package charismatic works in installations that are carefully designed to enhance the drama (and, in this case, horror) of the works shown. In some cases, this environmental approach to displaying works of art is somewhat hokey; I thought a recent show of Chinese bronzes at the MIA was impressive but a little bit too gimmicky, sacrificing the objective of informing the viewer to spectacle, a poor trade-off in my opinion when dealing with enigmatic bronze vessels that are too arcane and remote (they are three-thousand years old) to speak directly to viewers. The Caravaggio painting, by comparison, was shown to its maximum advantage and the works curated for comparison were also very interesting, if markedly less dramatic and spectacular than the star of the painting. Caravaggio's image is over-the-top and has always been considered too extreme to be comfortably experienced. (The first owner of the piece kept it behind a curtain and, then, theatrically would sweep the veil aside to show the horrific image; this is similar to the way that Courbet's gynecological "The Origin of the World" was shown -- it was also discretely veiled until the libertine owning the thing pulled aside the drapery, as it were to show, an anatomically correct vulva much larger than life-size as I recall.) The picture shows Judith, the heroine of the embattled Jews, sawing off the head of the naked shrieking Holofernes. The man's eyes are wide and his mouth forms a perfect hollow "O" in the middle of his beard and bright crimson jets of blood spray out of the massive wound in his throat. Most disconcerting, Holofernes left hand is outstretched, crouching like a tarantula on his bedclothes, fingers so widely spread apart that it makes your own hands hurt to see this thing -- it's like he's trying to play some diabolical piano concerto requiring an impossible span between keys. Judith is grim and plain-faced; she has her mouth set in a frown as if trying to solve some particularly difficult problem in geometry. In many paintings, Judith is portrayed as a sort of Mata Hari, a vamp or femme fatale. Caravaggio was homosexual and doesn't emphasize her beauty or seductiveness -- a nipple presses against her rather chaste blouse but there's no effort to sexualize the assassin. Judith's maid with a grey face and brutish leering expression holds a burlap sack open so that they can spirit away the head to prove that they have murdered the cruel ruler oppressing the Jews. The old woman's complexion is dull and dark in contrast to the creamy white skin of Judith who is here a brunette with rather frumpy hair -- often Judith is painted as a Venetian courtesan exposing her breasts and with blonde hair. Caravaggio poses the figures in an unnatural black void. Mirroring the gouts of blood jetting out of Holofernes' throat, there is an extravagant red drapery, more crimson than blood, unfurling like a huge perverse rose over the scene. It's an image of blatant terrorism -- an implacable murderess sawing off someone's head for the camera (in this case Caravaggio's implacable brush). The picture is concealed behind a wall emblazoned with the title of the exhibition -- the wall looks a little like one of Morris Louis' drip paintings; there's a very subtle vein, or veins, of red that seem to flow down the wall: the effect is essentially subliminal but its keyed to the spray of arterial blood in the picture. Behind the Caravaggio painting, a small room with ornate, somewhat Moorish doors (they don't open and lead nowhere) is decorated with variations of the theme of Judith butchering Holofernes. There are three rather mediocre if large and showy Italian paintings from the Baroque period -- they serve only to establish Caravaggio's excellence by comparison. One of these paintings overtly sexualizes the murder -- Judith is bare breasted and blonde as one of Titian's whores. More interesting are the smaller graphic works. A very old and primitive woodcut by Michael Wolgemut from the Nuremberger Chronicle shows the whole story in cartoon fashion -- Judith and her maid sneaking out of the embattled city, cavalry clashing in one corner of the image, Judith carousing with Holofernes at a banquet, the assassination, and, then, Holofernes' head displayed on a pike on the wall of the city. There's a little wood cut by the redoubtable graphic artist (and pornographer) Sebald Beham in which Judith looks like a dreadnaught -- she's stout and ugly with her waistcoat bulging open and looks pregnant; of course, she's carrying Holofernes' head like her purse. A gruesome picture by Lovis Corinth, a very interesting German painter, shows a blood-spattered Judith with flat, bare chest hacking off Holofernes' head, painted to have Corinth's features. In a painting by Caracci, a curtain is theatrically pulled back to reveal the sprightly murderess swinging a scimitar like a tennis racket. A drawing copying Mantegna shows Judith with the severed head -- behind her, we get a glimpse of Holofernes' bare toes. Some modern pictures, one with a vaguely feminist slant, complete the show. I found the pictures invigorating, although the subject is grim. (I wondered if the guard in the room forced to gaze at the Caravaggio for hours at a time gets some kind of combat pay.) It's interesting to observe that Judith is always accompanied by her elderly maid. In some pictures, the maid seems to be witch who is somehow driving Judith' to slaughter Holofernes. There's a disquieting Jungian element to these images -- woman is portrayed as young virginal avenger and as an elderly ugly hag. (The Caravaggio painting discovered first in 1950 is on loan from National Gallery of Ancient Art in Rome.)
An interesting display of graphics, all engravings as far as I can determine, by Marcantonio Raimundi is also on show. Raimundi was an important figure in the history of renaissance prints -- he was a thief and appropriated Duerer's woodcuts for wide dissemination on the basis of very precise and accurate metal plate engravings that he produced. (Raimundi's engravings are heavier, darker, and more dense looking that Duerer's wood cuts -- by comparison, the woodcuts are aerated with white spaces that can't be accurately transcribed in the metal-plate engravings.) Raimundi is sometimes described as a kind of "human xerox machine" --he went so far as to engrave Duerer's characteristic monogram on his plates, creating some confusion in art history. Some of Raimundi's own engravings have very peculiar and mysterious iconography. One engraving shows some stolid-looking and hardworking putti who are dragging around a strange-looking pedestal and an anchor -- surmise is that the image is an emblem picture epitomizing festina lente ("make haste slowly"). There is a bizarre and memorable engraving made just before Raimundi's death in 1534 around the time of the sack of Rome. The picture is called "The Skeleton" and it shows a naked hag, apparently a witch, being dragged about atop a skeleton consisting of ribs and spine of a huge animal: the witch is up to no good and birds scatter in panic in front of her. A man strides forward carrying an infant under his arm, possibly to boil the kid in the witch's cauldron. At the rear of the strange procession, a man raises his arm in a gesture that imitates a figure in one of Mantegna's Triumphs of Caesar -- but instead of uplifting a standard or trumpet the man is holding a femur jointed to a hip bone. This is a very puzzling (and fascinating) picture.
"Gifts beyond Measure: Harriet and Walter Pratt" shows about 14 small works, all of them German Expressionist, donated to the Museum by the Pratts. The pictures are mostly murky and wild expressionist watercolors and pastels. There is a splendid wintry scene by Gabriel Muenter, Kandinsky's girlfriend, and a heavy-set, rather lugubrious cathedral by Emil Nolde, as well as several somewhat plaintive--looking portraits by Haeckel.
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