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.

Roger van der Weyden, Beheading of St John the Baptist (1455)

Hans Memling, Beheading of St. John the Baptist (1474)

Michelangelo Merisi da Caravaggio, Salome with the Head of St. John the Baptist (1607)

There are a number of compositions which depict Salome receiving the head of St. John the Baptist without any emotion, whatsoever. A strange non-emotional response to the beheading. This approach tends to psychologically separate Salome from her role in the decapitation (See below). Andrea Solari’s Salome of 1506, calmly accepts the severed head, averting her eyes slightly. The Salome of Lucas Cranach (1530) in her sumptuous garb conveys the look of one mildly satisfied with her trophy. Bernardo Luini’s Salome of 1500 seems totally divorced from the grisly head. The Salome by the Lorraine School Master (1630) gazes at us, the viewers, emotionless as she receives the severed head. And, Carel Fabritius (16300 presents a Salome who gazes at the executioner as though she was young lady at the market haggling over a vegetable (See below).

Andrea Solari, Salome with Head of St John Baptist (1506)

Lucas Cranach, Salome with Head of John Baptist (1530)

Bernardo Luini, Salome with Head of John the Baptist (a. 1500)

Lorraine School Master, Salome with Head of St John Baptist (c. 1630)

Carel Fabritius, Beheading of St John Baptist (1640)

Receiving with impassivity, or revulsion, or mild interest the head of St. John the Baptist is one thing, but touching it, fondling it is quite another. There are a number of paintings which show Salome in direct physical contact with the severed head. This hands on contact may be viewed with some revulsion, but it also directly links Salome with the martyrdom. In the paintings of Salome with the Head of St. John the Baptist by Pierre Bonnaud (1865) and Lovis Corinth (1900), the contacts take on sexual overtones bordering on necrophilia, or a decidedly unnatural act, particularly with the state of undress seen in Salome. The emphasis seems to be on the nude or semi-nude erotic figure of the princess. Aubrey Beardsley’s Salome assumes witch-like characteristics in his stark black and white illustration (See below), again underlining the erotic, fetishistic action. The hair of St. John the Baptist assumes reptilian character--a male Medusa. This may proceed from Oscar Wilde’s play of Salome and the later Richard Strauss’s opera of the same name in which Herodias is severed from the plot ostensibly and the beheading comes from St. John the Baptist’s refusal to submit to Salome’s sexual advances.

Pierre Bonnaud-Salome with the Head of St. John Baptist (1865)

Lovis Corinth, Salome with the Head of St. John Baptist (1900)

Aubrey Beardsley, Salome with the Head of St. John Baptist (1896)

From the XVI^th Century onward there appears numerous paintings which portray Salome with the head of St. John the Baptist in what may be seen as portrait-like representations--the grisly trophy. Although the model is almost never identified, these representations are, nonetheless, portraits (See below).

Sebastiano del Piombo, Salome with the Head of St. John the Baptist (1510)

The composition is reminiscent of Renaissance portraits with the inclusion of a window and the distant landscape

Antonio de Solario, Salome with the Head of St. John the Baptist (1510)

Solario's Salome recalls portraits of women in courtly garb. The head of St. John the Baptist, treated in low light, nearly melts into the garment of Salome.

Lucas Cranach, Salome with the Head of St. John the Baptist (1530)

A typical Cranach treatment of a young woman in the garb of the Saxon Court.

Onorio Marinari, Salome with the Head of St. John the Baptist (1670)

A rather sweet representation of Salome. The head of St. John the baptist almost appears to be suckling.

Marco Benefiale, Salome with the Head of St. John the Baptist (1720)

Salome, here, could pass for a member of the Court of Louis XIV.

The XX^th and XXI^st Centuries find a dearth of the subject of Salome with the head of St. John the Baptist. The subject has lost its allure. Almost, without exception, when the subject is treated, it is with sexual overtones. The German Art Nouveau proponent, Adolf Frey-Moock’s (1882-1954) paints a veiled Salome with the Head of St. John the Baptist (1910) with obvious erotic implication. So, too, the Salome with the Head of St. John the Baptist (2007) by the Polish painter, Joanna Chrobak takes on a decidedly sexual overtone (See below).

Adolf Frey-Moock, Salome with the Head of St. John the Baptist (1910)

Joanna Chrobak, Salome with the Head of St. John the Baptist (2997)

The most unusual treatment of Salome is by the Russian artist, Svetlana Kondakova’s Salome Beheading St. John Baptist (2000). This can only be viewed as a violent feminist painting in which Salome is beheading St. John the Baptist with a hand saw. Not only is the treatment unusual, Kondakova’s St. John the Baptist is a rough, tattooed man who is vainly trying to fend of the decapitation (See below). This painting is more the representation of the artist’s own psyche than the Biblical story.

Svetlana Kondakova, Salome Beheading St. John Baptist (a. 2000)

The Head of St. John the Baptist

Of the five great religions of the world, three venerate relics--i.e., Christianity, Islam and Buddhism. In Islam those relics tend to be objects associated with the Prophet Mohammed--e.g., the Holy Mantle and the Holy Banner. However graves of important Islamic and holy personages assume the role of a relic and are visited regularly by the devote. The Buddhist temple of Kandy, Sri Lanka is said to possess the tooth of The Buddha and a major festival is held each year to venerate that relic. In Christianity, relics tend to be saints or parts of their body. The Basilica of San Zeno, Verona, Italy, houses the whole body of San Zeno in a glass covered sarcophagus in the crypt.

One would think that for Christians the head of St. John the Baptist would have become a venerable relic. And, so it was, supposedly. There are three locations which, reportedly, possess the head of St. John the Baptist--the Umayyad Mosque in Damascus; San Silvestro in Capite, Rome; and the Residenz Museum in Munich. The Orthodox Church has one several sagas regarding the finding and losing the head. The journeys of the head takes on truly Byzantine twists.

An official by the name of Innocent, while building a cell, some say church, discovered the head of St. John the Baptist on the Mount of Olives. Fearing that the head would fall into hands of unbelievers, he reburied the head within the confines of the church. After Innocent died, without revealing the whereabouts of the head, the church fell into ruin. Later, during the times of Constantine the Great, two monks were on a pilgrimage to Jerusalem when they had a vision, revealing to them the location of the head. They placed the head in a sack and returned home. On the way the met a potter and gave him the sack to carry. During the night a vision came to the potter and revealed to him the contents of the head. In the night he took the sack with the head in it and went to his home and kept it hidden. As he was dying, he gave the sack with the head in it to his sister for safe keeping and the head remained in the possession of that family for some time. After some years an Arian named Eustathius, came into possession of the head and buried it in a cave near Emesa. In 425, a monastery was constructed over the site of the cave and a vision came the Archimandrite Marcellus of that monastery revealing to him the location of the head of St. John the Baptist. Around the year 820, the head was transferred to Comana in Cappadocia. In 850 a vision appeared to the Patriarch Ignatius of Constantinople revealing to him the location of St. John the Baptist’s head. He informed the Emperor Michael III of the vision and a delegation went to Comana, retrieved the head and brought it to Constantinpole where it was placed in a church.

During the Medieval Period relics became quite important. As a matter of fact there was a flourishing trade in relics from church to church. Burgos Cathedral possesses a huge inventory of relics, including the right index finger of St. Thomas á Becket and the body of El Cid. Several churches and monasteries throughout Europe claim(ed) to possess the head of St. John the Baptist. Even the small town of Saint-Jean-d’Angély, Charante Maritime, France, once claimed to possess the head.

From around the end of the XIV^th Century onwards there appears numerous rather grisly paintings of the Head of St. John the Baptist on a Charger. The painting of Dirk Bouts (1460) (See below) seemed to spawn a number of copies (See below). In them we see the severed head of the saint resting on a charger, eyes nearly closed and mouth slightly open. It is of interest to note that none of these paintings portray any blood. Nearly contemporaneous with Dirk Bouts painting is the representation of the severed head by Giovanni Bellini (1464) (See below). Bellini’s work is more realistic in the Southern Renaissance sense. And, a bit of gore is encountered. Further, in this work, the mouth of St. John the Baptist is gaping in this realistic interpretation.

Giovanni Bellini, Head of St. John the Baptist (1464)

Dirk Bouts, Head of St. John the Baptist (a. 1460)

Circle of Dirk Bouts, Head of St. John the Baptist (c. 1490)

Unknown After Dirk Bouts, Head of St. John the Baptist (1500)

Circle of Dirk Bouts, Head of St. John the Baptist (a. 1500)

Unknown After Dirk Bouts, Head of St. John the Baptist (a. 1620)

The painting of Marco Palmezzano of the Head of St John the Baptist (c. 1490) depicts the severed head resting upon a ledge or narrow table top. A thin thread of blood trickles from the neck and over the edge (See below). Gian Francesco Maineri in a work dated 1520 is a bit more realistic as he depicts the spinal cord and other physical details of the severed neck. The head rests, not in a charger, but in a metal compote and upon a square of material. A pool of blood is also indicated (See below). St. John the Baptist is an important saint within the Orthodox Church. There are numerous icons of the severed head of the saint, but they lack the gore encountered in the western church’s representations. A XIX^th Century icon shows the Head of St. John the Baptist upon a shallow footed bowl in the abstracted manner of Orthodox icons (See below). Modern representations of the severed head of St. John the Baptist are far less depicted than in previous centuries. The Detroit artist, Mario Moore paints a self portrait for Herodias with the Head of St. John the Baptist (2010) (See below).

Marco Palmezzano, Head of St. John the Baptist (1490)

Gian Francesco Maineri, Head of St. John the Baptist (1520)

Anonymous Icon Master, Head of St. John the Baptist (XIX^th Century)

Mario Moore, Herodias with the Head of St. John the Baptist (2010)

Michelangelo Merisi da Caravaggio and St. John the Baptist

Guido Reni had his St. Sebastian painting over ten versions of that saint; Caravaggio seemed to be taken with St. John the Baptist. He painted eight, possibly nine versions of this saint without attendant figures. Prior to Caravaggio and the Counter Reformation St. John the Baptist had been represented as a mature adult either alone in the wilderness or baptizing the Christ. In addition, many painters portrayed the saint as an infant, usually in the presence of the Madonna and/or the infant Christ, his cousin, or so it was thought. Two artists, prior to the Counter Reformation and/or Caravaggio painted St. John the Baptist as a youth or young man--i.e., Leonardo da Vinci (1514) (See below) and Andrea del Sarto (1528) (See below). These two paintings were highly praised and were obviously influential as far as Caravaggio was concerned as all of his paintings representing St. John the Baptist as a single figure and showed the saint as a young man or youth.

Leonardo da Vinci, St John the Baptist, Louvre (1514)

Andrea del Sarto (Andrea d’Agnolo), St John Baptist, Florence (1528)

In the year 1571, Michaelangelo Merisi was born in Lombaardy in the small hill town of Caravaggio. In about 1583, at approximately twelve years of age, Caravaggio apprenticed for four years with the Bergamese painter Simone Peterzano. Peterzano was a Late Mannerist with some repute in Milan. Peterzano’s subject matter ran from classic to religious with a preponderance of religious subjects, mainly in fresco. After his apprenticeship the young artist is said to have returned to his home and may have traveled to Venice. Then, in 1592, the twenty-one year old Caravaggio leaves Milan and travels to Rome with a small inheritance which didn’t last him long. Rome at the beginning of the Counter Reformation was bustling with the building of many churches and numerous, lucrative commissions were available.

Caravaggio seemed to possess a predilection for the employment of young men as models in many of his early paintings in Rome (1592- a. 1596). This is evident in such works as the Boy with a Basket of Fruit (1593), the Bacchus (1595) (See below), the The Musicians (1595), the Lute Player (1596), and the famed Amor Vincit Omnia (1601). The artist presents these young men as possessing a sense of veiled lussuriosi--they were luxurious, in the true sense of the word. His models were naturalistically treated and many of them bore the grime and character of a street urchin. They were certainly not Apollonian! The naturalism that Caravaggio employed in depicting the human model was not mere physical realism but psychological realism as well--realism with a vengeance. There is an overt sexuality, certainly sensuality in Caravaggio’s treatment of these young men. These youths may be viewed as homoerotic in a XXI^st Century sense. But what may be true in the XXI^st Century is not necessarily applicable in the XVI^th and XVII^th Centuries. It would not have been untoward to see young nude boys frolicking in the Tiber or Arno or Po Rivers, or even in the narrow lanes of the cities of Italy. In 1594 one of his paintings caught the eye of the powerful, sophisticated, aristocratic and dissolute Cardinal Del Monte.

Michelangelo Merisi da Caravaggio, Bacchus (1596)

Cardinal Francesco Maria Bourbon Del Monte Santa Maria was an early patron of the young artist. For Del Monte as well as a number of his polyvalent circle, Caravaggio painted several cabinet works. Del Monte was a highly influential churchman whose sexuality was constantly in question--so much so that it is reputed that it cost him the Papal election on at least two occasions. Although it is said that in his early life Del Monte had a mistress, he developed more than a fatherly interest in young boys in his later life. This intimate circle of Del Monte included the important and like-minded Marchese Vincenzo Giustiniani who at the end of his life owned fifteen Caravaggios as well as the famed poet Giovanni Battista Marino. Both Giustiniani and Marino, reportedly possessed a dubious reputation and discretely participated in a broad range of sexual delights. During this short period--i.e., 1792-1599--Caravaggio painted, among other works: Boy Peeling a Fruit (c. 1592), Young Sick Bacchus (1593) (See below), Boy with a Basket of Fruit (1593) (See below), A Boy Bitten by a Lizard (1594), Bacchus (c. 1595), The Musicians (1595), and The Lute Player (1596). Towards the end of the series of cabinet paints Caravaggio began to employ religious subject matter. Among these are: St Francis of Assisi in Ecstacy (1595), The Penitent Magdalene (c. 1596), Rest on the Flight into Egypt (1597), St. Catherine of Alexandria (1598), Martha and Mary Magdalene (1598), Judith Beheading Holofernes (1598), Sacrifice of Isaac (1598), David and Goliath (1599) (See below), and Supper at Emaus (1601) (See below). It was probably the Cardinal Scipione Borghese who backed Caravaggio in the rejected altarpiece of Madonna and Child with St. Anne (Madonna with the Serpent) of 1606. Its rejection, apparently was based on three “problems:” the wrinkled visage of St. Anne, the neckline of the Madonna and the uncircumcised Christ. Cardinal Scipione Borghese (born Caffarelli) was the nephew of Pope Paul V and a member of Del Monte’s circle, had a notable collection of homoerotic paintings and was more than once plucked from a potentially disastrous homosexual scandal by his uncle, the Pope.

Michelangelo Merisi da Caravaggio, Boy with Basket of Fruit (1593)

Michelangelo Merisi da Caravaggio, Sick Bacchus-self portrait (1593)

Michelangelo Merisi da Caravaggio, David and Goliath (1599)

Michelangelo Merisi da Caravaggio, Supper at Emaus (1601).

Michelangelo Merisi da Caravaggio, Madonna and Child with St Anne-aka Madonna of the Serpent (1606)

The effete ephebes of his earlier Roman years had given way to the brooding, worldly youths of his later years in that city and his later treatments of St. John the Baptist. One painting from his later years in Rome asserts itself in a most disturbing manner. For the Marchese Vincenzo Giustiniani he painted the famed Amor Vincit Omnia (1602) (See below). It is a painting which many see as the capstone to Caravaggio’s homoerotic works and one which points to the artists polyvalent sexuality. However, Caravaggio’s sexuality is not the point--his sensibilities are. Sensuality and religiosity are the two aesthetic poles of Renaissance and High Renaissance art yet Caravaggio melded the opposites in his startling approach and technique. The sensuality of his later works are amplified by chiaroscuro and his use of radical naturalism.

Michelangelo Merisi da Caravaggio, Amor Vincit Omnia (Amor Victorious) (1602), Gemäldegalerie, Berlin.

The subject was common in the High Renaissance and Mannerist periods and, indeed, Caravaggio’s model is common, a genre type. Caravaggio as he painted directly from the model did not idealize his Amor, but portrayed his ruddy cheeks, uneven teeth, touseled hair and the wings of a predator, an eagle! The symbols which abound ’bout the adolescent Amor are references to a patron: Marchese Vincenzo Giustiniani. The arrows that the Amor holds in his right hand are later encountered in the dart of the Angel in Bernini’s Ecstacy of St. Theresa. In the face of this Amor, one sees a gleeful challenge. But, to what?

Caravaggio may have possessed a violent gene, he was certainly known to be quarrelsome, bellicose, contentious and belligerent. In 1600 he was arrested for a sword fight with a member of the guards of Castel Sant’ Angelo. Caravaggio was sued and jailed in 1603 for writing libelous verses about an fellow artist, Giovanni Baglione. He was hauled into court for throwing an artichoke into the face of an insolent waiter and later that year he was jailed for stoning a member of the constabulary. In 1605, he attacked the home of his Roman landlady and broke all the windows in the house with rocks after he was expelled for non-payment of rent, and was accused of injuring the notary, Pasqualone, in an argument over a girl called Lena--a girl of questionable reputation. In 1606, Caravaggio and his friends got into an argument with Ranuccio Tommasoni supposedly over the score in a tennis match. The fight ended with the death of Tommasoni. That has been the accepted story until a BBC documentary by Andrew Graham-Dixon who revealed that Tommasoni was a pimp for two young prostitute: Anna Bianchini and Fillide Melandroni. Both men sought their favors and in a rage Caravaggio botched an attempt to castrate Tommasoni, causing, instead his death. In 1608, having left Naples under a cloud Caravaggio went to Malta where he received the prestigious Knighthood of the Order of St. John Hospitaller, the Sovereign Military Order of Malta. Later he wounded an officer of the Order in a sword fight and was jailed and his knighthood was rescinded. He fled to Sicily, was set upon by emissaries of the Knights of Malta, severely beaten and disfigured. He died in 1910 at Porto Ercole, Tuscany, possibly from malaria while waiting for his pardon from the Pope. He was thirty-eight!

Unlike most of his contemporaries, Caravaggio eschewed preparatory studies for his compositions, preferring instead an alla prima approach to his painting. This mode when coupled with his naturalism and attention to detail--more a characteristic of northern Europe--created works of high emotional intensity. Add this to his use of startling chiaroscuro evolved into works that rent the prevailing sensitivities of all but a few. Not only was his technique and approach to painting revolutionary, so too was his approach to traditional iconography with regard to religious subject matter. His dramatic, theatrical approach swept away all former traditions. By 1600, however, Caravaggio‘s reputation was secured by the paintings: the Calling of Saint Matthew (1599) (See below) and Martyrdom of Saint Matthew (1599) (See below). The two large paintings were dramatic. They were theatrical. They were revolutionary.

Michelangelo Merisi da Caravaggio, The Calling of St. Matthew (1599), Contarelli Chapel, Rome-

Michelangelo Merisi da Caravaggio, The Martyrdom of St. Matthew (1599), Contarelli Chap

el, Rome-

Caravaggio’s treatment of St. John the Baptist with Ram (1602) (See below)--the second or possibly the third painting of the saint alone and unaccompanied--is impudently audacious bordering on scandalous. But, no less impudent or audacious than Donatello’s ephebe David (c. 1440) (See below). Not only does Caravaggio paint St. John the Baptist as a youth, he paints him nude. The young saint either melts into the background or emerges from it in a tantalizing series of diagonals and counter diagonals of brilliantly lit flesh and murky shadows! Here, there is none of the well lit idealism of Del Sarto or Raphael. From behind the luxurious figure of St. John the Baptist looms the menacing head of a ram. Not a lamb but a ram! The ram which traditionally is more a symbol of sexual excess than the “Lamb of God.” The saint embraces the ram with his right arm, turns his head and looks at us, the viewers. This young figure is sensually predatory, demanding confidential eye contact which creates a tension, a destructive tension forcing the viewer to react in ways they might not be prepared to do. Have we come upon the young saint in a private moment? If so, his glance does not communicate either surprise or embarrassment, but a rather taunting look. In this work, Caravaggio’s approach is far from orthodox and closer to heterodox.

Michelangelo Merisi da Caravaggio (?), St. John the Baptist (c. 1598), Basel.

The attribution of the Basel St. John the Baptist as a work of Caravaggio is not unanimous. There is a question of the inclusion of the roses the young saint holds as being traditional of the Counter Reformation. However, the diagonal/counter-diagonal composition, the deep chiaroscuro, the ruddy cheeks, sunburned neck and hands of this genre model, as well as the attention to detail are hallmarks of Caravaggio’s style. The single, notable difference between this St. John the Baptist and his later versions is in the fact that the robe is not red.

Michelangelo Merisi da Caravaggio (?), St. John the Baptist (c. 1598),Toledo.

As with the Basel St. John the Baptist, the attribution of the St. John the Baptist of Toledo is also not unanimous. The light value of the whole is much higher than the other works of Caravaggio, particularly in the upper left quadrant. But, his attention to detail and the employment of diagonals and counter-diagonals point to Caravaggio.

Michelangelo Merisi da Caravaggio, St. John the Baptist with Ram (1602), Capitolini, Rome.

Michelangelo Merisi da Caravaggio, St. John the Baptist with Ram (1602), Doria Pamphilj Gallery, Rome.

The painting was immediately so popular that Caravaggio painted a second.

Michelangelo Merisi da Caravaggio, St. John the Baptist in the Wilderness (1604), Gallerie Nazionale, Rome.

The brooding, ruddy faced youth with sun-burned hands and neck points to Caravaggio’s use of genre figures. The face barely emerges from deep shadow as the young saint supports himself on the reed-cross. Again, Caravaggio employs diagonals and counter-diagonals in this painting.

Michelangelo Merisi da Caravaggio, St. John the Baptist in the Wilderness (1604), Kansas City.

Again the brooding saint. Is he contemplating his own future, his own impending death as he rests in the wilderness? The forboding look on the young saint’s face is mirrored in the dark background and the withering leaves at his feet, a contrast to the bright, vibrant leaves of the 1598 version.

Michelangelo Merisi da Caravaggio, St. John the Baptist at the Well(1608), Bonelli Collection, Valletta.

Neither the Bible nor the hagiographic sources mentions this subject. Yet Caravaggio presents us with a genre scene that is perfectly natural.

Michelangelo Merisi da Caravaggio (?), St. John the Baptist Reclining (1610), Munich.

Caravaggio takes the simplest of moments here and depicts the brooding St. John the Baptist resting.

Michelangelo Merisi da Caravaggio, St. John the Baptist (1610), Gallerie Borghese, Rome.

Caravaggio includes the ram first seen in the 1602 painting, but here it is more a background ornament. St. John the Baptist not only seems to be brooding, he also appears to be weary. Gone are the confrontational looks of the 1602 St. John. Here we are forced into the contemplative mind of the young, ruddy faced saint.