Da Vinci's Code
Professor Christopher Witcombe, Art History
CONTENTS & SCHEDULE RESOURCES
The Backlash Against Women
FROM HEROINE TO SEDUCTRESS
Judith
Judith had long been regarded as a heroic woman who saved her city from the besieging armies of the Assyrian general Holophernes.
Beginning in the 16th century, however, she is transformed into a cunning seductress who uses her feminine wiles and sexuality to seduce and destroy Holophernes
Hans Baldung Grien, Judith with the Head of Holophernes, 1525
(Germanisches Nationalmuseum)
Conrad Meit, Judith, 1510-15
Painted marble, height: 30 cm (Bayerisches Nationalmuseum, Munich)
Hans Sebald Beham, Judith with the Head of Holophernes, c. 1545
(Colorado Collection)
Jan Sanders Hemessen, Judith, 1540
Oil on panel (Art Institute of Chicago, Chicago)
In most of these stories, the women tempt the men with their sexual attractiveness in order to triumph over them.