Salome with the Head of St. John the Baptist

Of the numerous subjects revolving ‘round St. John the Baptist, one of the popular ones is Salome with the severed head on a charger. Lest we forget, it was not Salome who was the instigator in the beheading of St. John the Baptist, but Herodias, her mother. Herodias was angered at St. John the Baptist as he stated flatly that her marriage to Herod Antipas was illegal. She had been married to his half brother and divorced him. Then she married Herod Antipas, who also divorced his wife Phasaelis to marry Herodias. Be that as it may, many see this story as an example of the ultimate castration and Salome the castrator.

A number of artists include Salome at the execution. She stands as an impassive witness to this horrendous deed or in some cases an interested collaborator. There is no Biblical reference attesting to Salome’s presence at the execution of St. John the Baptist. By her inclusion, the artist, psychologically, heaps additional calumny upon Salome, casting her as an evil, gloating, possessed being. Bernardo Luini in Salome with the Head of St. John the Baptist (1500) and an Anonymous Lorraine Master (c. 1630) both depict Salome with a slight smirk of satisfaction on her face (See below). In both cases the rough, menacing figure of the muscular executioner is prominent, placing the princess as witness to the beheading.

Numerous artists have portrayed Salome receiving the head of St. John the Baptist with disgust. Several of these renditions cast Salome in a different light. They tend to focus on her more feminine, delicate side. Rogier van der Weyden (1455) portrays the princess turning away from the grisly sight as the bald-headed executioner presents her with the severed head while torrents of blood gush from the neck of St. John the Baptist. Hans Memling’s 1474 depicts the timorous Salome, furtively glancing at the severed head as it is placed on the charger which she is holding (See below). There is a hint of apprehensiveness in Salome in Caravaggio’s 1607 version. As with nearly all of Caravaggio’s paintings, the genre theme predominates. Salome is depicted as a common figure along with the whizzed servant and the rough executioner (See below). The Caravaggio depiction is even more startling as aesthetic distance is abolished and the viewer is forced into close proximity with the action.