(jazzy music)
Male: We're in the Kunsthistorisches Museum
in Vienna and we're looking at a Lucas Cranach.
This is a painting of Judith with the Head of Holofernes,
which is a biblical story, an Old Testament story.
Female: It's a pretty gruesome story
and the painting is pretty gruesome.
Males: Holofernes is an Assyrian General
that is threatening a Jewish town where Judith lives.
Now, the town is about to give up.
They're completely surrounded.
But Judith dresses up, makes herself beautiful,
and bravely sneaks into the enemy camp.
She makes her way to the tent of the General.
There's some suggestion that there's seduction involved.
Female: Holofernes has a little too much to drink,
and Judith seizes the opportunity and cuts off his head,
brings it back to the town and the Assyrian army flees.
Male: It would seem that actually Judith brought
the head back to Cranach's studio
because he paints it with extraordinary
amount of detail; so much so that it suggests
that Lucas Cranach had actually been looking at severed heads.
If you look at the neck, you can actually
make out the vertebrae.
Female: And it's painted with that attention to detail
that we see also in her clothing, which is really fabulous.
This is like a whole fashion statement here.
Male: This is the kind of clothing that might have been
worn in the Saxon court in the 15th century.
In fact, some scholars suggest that this
might be a specific princess.
Female: That's where Cranach harked,
in the Saxon court in Wittenberg.
Male: Here, he's rendered this really interesting
contrast between the violence and this beautiful,
strong, brave but refined young woman.
Male: You're right, there is a contrast
between the gruesomeness of the head
and the luxuriousness of what she's wearing
and the passivity of her face.
Cranach lavished a lot of attention on her clothing.
Look at the embroidery on her bodice,
the stitching on her sleeves, her necklaces
and those dangling pearls.
Look down at her gloves that have slits in them
by the knuckles so that she can bend her fingers,
and we can see all the gold jewelry that she's wearing.
There's something really aristocratic about her clothing
and about her demeanor.
Male: When you're describing the incredibly
detailed garments, this was a fabulous court costume.
I can't help but notice another kind of contrast,
not just between the gruesomeness of the severed head
and the beauty of the young woman.
You were describing those gloves, those hands.
They're so beautifully modeled with light and shadow,
they turn in space so well, but if you look at certain
other patterns within the dress, they seem so flat.
In fact, the entire image, and this is very much
a characteristic of Cranach's style,
the whole thing is somewhat 2 dimensional,
and there is this heavy decorative quality
that Cranach is clearly intersted in.
Female: The colors, those reds and oranges
and golds, and the gold of her hair really
make her flesh stand out against that black background.
Male: There is a sense of eroticism here too.
Her bodice is quite low.
There's a lot of flesh that's displayed,
especially as it's highlighted by her necklaces.
All of this, interestingly, is within
a highly pitched political context.
Wittenberg was of the origin of Lutheranism,
and in fact, this artist was a very close
personal friend of Martin Luther.
Some art historians have suggested that
the story of Judith, which Cranach painted
several times, was important as a symbol
of resistance against the Catholic tradition;
specifically against Charles V, the Holy Roman Emperor.
Female: So I think there are a couple
of potential readings here.
One is political in the idea of resistance
against the enemy and bravery, an idea of
the Protestant resistance to the Catholics;
but also a different reading of
a dangerous and sexual woman.
Male: The beauty, the sexuality, the violence,
this incredible detail, the interest in costume
and fashion, these are all qualities that clearly
the Saxon court enjoyed and helped make
this artist the wealthiest man in Wittenberg at this time.
(jazzy music)