Beruflich Dokumente
Kultur Dokumente
BY NANETTE B. RODNEY
Assistant, Department
of Publications
The story of Salome and Saint John the Baptist, so simply told in the New Testament
www.jstor.org
Salome dancing at Herod's feast. ABOVE: Scene from Bishop's Berniward's column, Hildesheim
cathedral, and a bronze plate from the door of the church of San Zeno, Verona. xi century.
BELOW:
Mosaic lunette in the baptistery of the cathedral of San Marco, Venice. xiv century
Peraea from 4
B.C.
to 39 A.D., mainly
in the
191
ABOVE: Detail of a fresco of Herod's feast by Pietro Lorenzetti in the church of Servi di Maria,
Siena. xiv century. BELOW: Three scenes from a large bone altarpiece by Baldassare degli
Embriachi, late xiv or early xv century. Gift of J. Pierpont Morgan, I9I7
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Scenes from the life of John the Baptist. Choir reliefs in Amiens cathedral. French, xv century
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Two engravings of Salome presenting the head of Saint John. LEFT: by Israhel van Mleckenem,
1480. Gift of Henry Walters, 1917. RIGHT: by Albrecht
Diirer, 1511. Dick Fund, 1931
around
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Salome with the head of Saint John the Baptist. LEFT: by Andrea Solario (about 1460-1524).
The Prado, Madrid
Bequest of Michael Friedsam, 1931. RIGHT: by Titian (about 1477-I576).
In Italy during this period, the familiar re- the early fifteenth century. Adapted to the triligious stories were interpreted in a quiet, ob- angular space of its pinnacle, one wing of this
jective spirit entirely different from the lively large triptych contains the familiar three
realism of late Gothic art beyond the Alps. scenes. In the square central panel Salome is
Donatello, who by synthesizing Florentine demanding the head of Saint John as Herod
realism with an ideal borrowed from Roman and his guests raise their hands in horror. At
antiquity created the formula of renaissance the right the saint, kneeling in the door of his
sculpture, designed a very fine feast of Herod prison, prays as the fatal blow is about to deamong the bronze reliefs decorating the bap- scend. At the left Salome kneels to give his
tismal font of a church in Siena, and his much head to Herodias, and, to fill the remaining
younger contemporary Mino da Fiesole carved corner, the artist has carved a falconer and a
a spirited although rather archaic version of dog. The bands between the panels are decothe subject on a marble pulpit in the cathe- rated with inlaid designs. The story is also
dral at Prato. Framed in a profusion of classi- told in a series of three paintings of this
cal architectural decoration, Mino's feast is set period in the Museum which belong to the
in a classical renaissance interior crowded with "international style," a late medieval, tapestrysmiling figures and chubby musicians, while like mode of painting current throughout
Saint John stares through a window in the Europe.
The fifteenth century never tired of repeatbackground. As an example of how popular
the subject was, there is a large fresco in a ing the story of Salome and Saint John. It is
chapel of the same cathedral representing abundantly illustrated in the art of the Low
Herod's feast, painted by Fra Filippo Lippi Countries and Germany as well as in the Latin
around 1464.
lands. The theme was admirably suited to the
In the Museum's collection is a bone altar- northerners' love of minute details. Hans
piece on which the story of Salome was carved Memling, born in Germany but trained in the
by Baldassare degli Embriachi, a gentleman Flemish tradition of Rogier van der Weyden,
ivory-carver who worked mainly in Venice in included the Salome story in the left wing of
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dejection.
During the High Renaissance and afterwards, the formula of Salome with the head of
John the Baptist offered many artists the opportunity of contrasting a lovely young girl
with a lifeless head. Andrea Solario, a MilaRIGHT:
Delacroix
(1796-1863).
Palais Bourbon,
Paris
197
Salome dancing before Herod, by Georges Rochegrosse (b. 1859). In a private collection
elegant pose for the painter's model, who is his
daughter Lavinia. Using a newly developed
technique of oil painting, Titian and his Venetian contemporaries achieved pictorial effects of remarkable richness.
Religious subjects were not popular in Protestant Holland of the seventeenth century, but
curiously enough, this little nation of prosperous burghers produced the most profound and
imaginative religious painter of the century.
Rembrandt made an etching of the beheading
of John the Baptist, and the feast scene was
painted by one of his followers, Ferdinand
Bol, chiefly known as a prolific portraitist.
Bol's Salome is highly amusing; interpreted as
a buxom Dutch lass, she hops about gaily before the appreciative Herod. The old king
is reminiscent of Rembrandt's orientalized sitters, for he is clad in a fur-trimmed coat and
peacock-plumed turban similar to the studio
"props" so often used by the master to enhance the textural interest of his portraits.
LEFT:
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