I found this wonderful website (http://www.wga.hu/index1.html) that has pretty much every artwork in creation. Here are the images of Salome I was able to cull. Follow the linking trail.
I think it might be fruitful to analyze how Beardsley's illustrations depart from the visual Salome tradition and see whether this reflects Wilde's departure from the literary Salome tradition.
Bernardino Luini (Italian Renaissance painter, Lombard school; b. 1480, Luino, d. 1532, Milano) apparently liked Salome with JB beheaded because he treated the subject three different times. But all three portrayals are quite similar. A disembodied hand (in the first and third case) holds JB casually by the hair as it is lowered into the empty silver charger. Salome gently holds the charger, almost caressing it, with her head turned demurely away. She is dispassionate in the first and third images. In the second there is a hint of a smile on her face, suggesting the invisible emotional history of the story. In all three cases, Salome appears to be a typical Renaissance woman, although I am not familiar with female iconography of the time period. There is a little cleavage, but that does not seem too scandalous. The first Salome's costume interests me the most. She looks the most royal or patrician. She has a pearl circlet around her head, and a pearl and gold necklace dangling a pendant of a naked cherubic looking figure. I wonder what this is and what it means. In all three images, JB has medium-length curly hair, peacefully closed eyes, and two-pronged beard. If I were beheaded, I think it's likely that I would have a look of horror frozen on my face. Is he peaceful because he has nothing to be ashamed or fearful of as the Lord's prophet? Is this typical of the tradition?
Oh, wow. If you type "Salome" into the search engine, you come up with 60 hits. I won't attempt to analyze them all, but maybe later I'll post some more thoughts.
I think it might be fruitful to analyze how Beardsley's illustrations depart from the visual Salome tradition and see whether this reflects Wilde's departure from the literary Salome tradition.
Bernardino Luini (Italian Renaissance painter, Lombard school; b. 1480, Luino, d. 1532, Milano) apparently liked Salome with JB beheaded because he treated the subject three different times. But all three portrayals are quite similar. A disembodied hand (in the first and third case) holds JB casually by the hair as it is lowered into the empty silver charger. Salome gently holds the charger, almost caressing it, with her head turned demurely away. She is dispassionate in the first and third images. In the second there is a hint of a smile on her face, suggesting the invisible emotional history of the story. In all three cases, Salome appears to be a typical Renaissance woman, although I am not familiar with female iconography of the time period. There is a little cleavage, but that does not seem too scandalous. The first Salome's costume interests me the most. She looks the most royal or patrician. She has a pearl circlet around her head, and a pearl and gold necklace dangling a pendant of a naked cherubic looking figure. I wonder what this is and what it means. In all three images, JB has medium-length curly hair, peacefully closed eyes, and two-pronged beard. If I were beheaded, I think it's likely that I would have a look of horror frozen on my face. Is he peaceful because he has nothing to be ashamed or fearful of as the Lord's prophet? Is this typical of the tradition?
Oh, wow. If you type "Salome" into the search engine, you come up with 60 hits. I won't attempt to analyze them all, but maybe later I'll post some more thoughts.
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