Blood stands out – a life-giving substance overflowing and overwhelming. Blood compels; it holds our gaze in repulsive fascination. We are astonished by its abundance; it spouts violently from the neck in mid-air, poring over the white sheets; lingering in crisp creases and fabrics. We are repulsed yet we cannot look away. Blood wields its power to produce an abject coupling of horror and delight. In Artemisia Gentileschi’s Judith Slaying Holofernes (1614–1629) (Image 16), blood stages the painting as a liminal space of abjection. Its presence demands distinction – there is the blood that streams from the general’s neck in jets of unbounded energy and the drops that drip and hover over the surface of the canvas, as if the artist delivered a violent splash, a sudden stroke of the fully loaded brush, and spread its content on the surface of the canvas.

These small drops are different in substance and form from the violent gushes that stream from the severed head. They proclaim their presence as something that belongs to the surface of the painting, yet is set apart and made distinct from the rest of the unfolding drama. Each drop enacts difference within similitude.