The story of young, beautiful and willful Salome was initially detailed in the Bible’s New Testament, but she was not officially named until her tale was told in Flavius Josephus’ Antiquities of the Jews. Salome was reportedly not even quite a teenager when she danced for Herod Antipas, her uncle and stepfather, who was so overwhelmed by her seductive moves that he offered her anything in exchange.
Dance of the Seven Veils
Salome wanted John the Baptist dead, along with the additional cruelty of demanding to see his decapitated head on a platter. John the Baptist had condemned Salome’s mother’s marriage to Herod Antipas, and angry maternal urging surely prompted Salome’s ruthless request. Her wishes were met, and her sultry dance for Herod Antipas at his birthday gathering is often referred to as that of the famed seven veils.
Salome’s story has inspired dramatic works for stage and screen, along with operas, ballets, and of course paintings. Classical artists such as Caravaggio, Titian, Guido Reni and Peter Paul Rubens portrayed the dancing temptress, and in more modern times Salome was distinctly depicted by Aubrey Beardsley, Gustav Klimt and Odilon Redon, along with Henri Regnault, Gustave Moreau, Ella Ferris Pell, Franz von Stuck and Robert Henri.
Henri Regnault’s Salomé
Henri Regnault (1843-1871) showed great promise in his early career, heading off to Morocco to ride the Orientalist wave and painting pictures which were well-received at the Paris Salon. Regnault’s alluring dark-haired portrait of Salome and her silver platter was done in 1870 and is considered one of his best works. Like the French Impressionist Frédéric Bazille, Regnault volunteered for and fought bravely throughout the Franco-Prussian War, yet also sadly like Bazille, Regnault was killed in combat and died at the age of twenty-eight.
Gustave Moreau’s Salomé Entering the Banquet Room
French Symbolist Gustave Moreau (1826-1898) was seemingly fascinated by certain evil ladies, and he created multiple versions of Salome around 1875. Moreau’s Salomes were said to have inspired Oscar Wilde’s 1891 play Salomé, which Wilde penned at first in French because at the time England did not permit any form of dramatic Biblical reenactment.
In one of Moreau’s Salomé scenes, the girl enters the banquet chamber to dance at Herod’s fateful birthday party. Moreau used watercolor with lighter tones than the usual flesh-rich Salome depictions, yet he managed to convey beautifully complex details of his Salomé’s bejeweled body and the scene’s lavish backdrop.
Ella Ferris Pell and Salome
American-born Ella Ferris Pell (1846-1922) studied in Paris with the French Academic painter Jean-Paul Laurens. Pell’s work is not widely-known, but her 1890 painting Salome is a highly admirable effort and offers a rare female artist’s perspective at a time when Salome was clearly a male-favored subject.
Pell’s Salome takes a daring turn with the model’s flowing, waist-length hair and one breast partially exposed. The feminine allure is there, but through the girl’s expression Pell also suggests her Salome’s uncertain power and how she seems more precocious than skillfully seductive.
Franz von Stuck’s Salome
Intense German Symbolist artist Franz von Stuck (1863-1928) managed to combine the sensual and the divine in his 1906 Salome. Von Stuck’s Salome is half-naked and fiercely persuasive, with a wide devouring mouth that contrasts with her gracefully beckoning hand motions. She dances before a star-studded sky while what appears to be the anxious figure of a slave holds John the Baptist’s head upon a platter. The saint’s head is surrounded by rays of light, indicating that even though he is now dead, his legacy as a holy man will live on.
Robert Henri’s Salome
American painter and educator Robert Henri (1865-1929) was the creative force who brought The Eight group of artists together, with a corresponding realistic consciousness often referred to as the Ashcan School. Henri painted more than one glimpse of Salome in 1909, giving a kind of early 20th century burlesque house stance and shimmer to his portraits. Henri’s beaded and veiled Salome is womanly and assured, her bare legs and midriff showing as she steps forward confidently to assert that she can make men do what she wants—and she knows it.
Sources
- Henri Regnault’s Salomé -- The Metropolitan Museum of Art
- All the People in the Bible -- Richard R. Losch (Wm. B. Eerdman, 2008)
- Salomé: A Play by Oscar Wilde
