Published in Tradition and innovation: artistic continuities and ruptures

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The collective religious and artistic imagery of the seventeenth century is a fundamental point of study at the sociological level, since it shows thoughts and models that governed life in community of the time. For this reason, a study of these images is proposed in this paper with the aim of defending the following thesis: it is possible, with the tools provided by the main historians of art of the sociological school (such as Antal, Francastel, Hadjinicolaou or Hauser), argue that the use of one type or another of images of biblical women (positive or negative) may vary according to gender, understood as a social construct, of the subject performing the representation. In this way, works made by female and male painters will be contrasted on the basis of thematic blocks: Judith beheading Holofernes, Susana and the Elders, Jael and Sisera and Samson and Delilah. Each of the themes, as you can see, presents a conflicting episode that has as protagonists a duo formed by a man and a woman. In this way the opposing positions between the two genders will be much more evident, depending on the hand of the painter.