Judith and the Sword

Artemisia painted Judith Slaying Holofernes twice, and both versions are visceral. Judith grips the Assyrian general's hair while she works a sword through his neck, blood spraying onto white sheets. Her face shows not horror but grim determination — a woman doing a job that has to be done.

Her earliest signed painting, Susanna and the Elders, shows the same instinct at age 17. The biblical Susanna is spied on by two men while she bathes. Most painters made her a relaxed nude for the viewer to enjoy. Artemisia paints her twisting away in real distress, her body recoiling from the men leaning over her — the scene told from the woman's point of view.