We do not know if Grammatica is portraying something real or merely representing an image from the stage. This too, is symbolic of its period. The mannerist and baroque eras reflected a time when art was being made to serve the propagandistic purposes of a Church under siege. Like the headless warrior on the stone table, it also was under attack by evil forces. These forces needed to be fought by any means necessary. All were participants in this battle -- and so the figure of the lowly older woman following the direction of the more upper class Judith. Individual initiative is replaced by group action. Impulse is substituted for carefully-planned covert attack. Judith's pointing finger is indicative of a place to which the two must go, a prearranged location that apparently is known only to Judith. Again, secrecy is more important than openness, if secrecy means victory and ultimate safety. The dimly illumined stone wall has about it an air of the dungeon. It lies to the right of the headless man and in the opposite direction from that in which the two women...
The world of the early Seventeenth Century is one of two hostile camps, left and right, good and bad, holy and unholy. In contrast, the world of Giovanni is wide open. The absence of identifying marks, in Giovanni's work, suggests a sense of universality such as accorded with the spirit of the times. The universal Church was complemented by a universal way of thinking one that was as logical and readily-apparent as the careful geometry of the arched window. Geometry, like mathematics in general, is highly rational. There is only one right answer. The world of Grammatica is instead a world of passion. The spiritual goals of the later time are highly emotional and speak to things that cannot easily be related in words, or summed up by formulas. The Judith and Holofernes of Matteo di Giovanni and Antiveduto Grammatica are as different as the two world in which they painted -- confident and rational vs. passionate and defensive. A powerful spirit animates each, one from the head; the other from the heart. Let the viewer decide which is…
