\paperw19995 \margr0\margl0 \plain \fs20 \f1 In the Old Testament is the story of Judith, a Jewish woman from the city of Bethulia, who freed her people from the threat
of invasion by the Assyrians by seducing their general, Holofernes, and then killing him.\par
Giorgione portrays the biblical heroine as a beautiful and modest woman, armed with nothing but her faith in God.\par
She has an innocent expression and lower
ed gaze, as if embarrassed by the presence of the great sword and severed head of Holofernes, on which her foot lightly rests.\par
The landscape that blends into the horizon, a hazy green stretch of countryside that is enlivened by the bluish outline of
a small town, is an example of the technique described by Vasari as ôpainting directly with colors,ö without ôsketches on paper,ö which Giorgione supposedly created.\par
The artistÆs meticulous depiction of the plants in the foreground and the \i sfuma
to\i0 used for the head of Holofernes show that the artist was familiar with the work of Leonardo, whom he may even have met.\par
The painting, which was acquired by Catherine II in 1779, was for a long time considered by art historians to be the work
of Raphael, due to its formal and spiritual harmony and the calmness that it evokes.
