Salome
– Biblical text
Mark 6:17–29 and Matthew 14:3–12 tell the story of Salome.
Princess Herodias divorced her husband Herod Philip and married his half- brother Herod Antipasbest, the tetrarch (governor) of Judea, who would eventually play a part in the execution of Jesus of Nazareth.
Even though Herod was intrigued by the preaching of Jokanaan/John the Baptist, John was arrested and imprisoned for claiming that the immoral divorce and remarriage of Herodias made her an incestuous adulterer.
Herodias wanted Jokanaan executed, but Herod refused, fearing the response of Jokanaan’s followers.
Salome was the teen aged daughter of Herodias and her first husband. At a festival Herod asked Salome to dance for him and his guests. He offered Salome anything she wished in return for the dance.
Salome danced and afterwards, at her mother’s vengeful urging, demanded the head of Jokanaan. Herod reluctantly granted her wish and Salome presented her mother with the severed head of Jokanaan.
– Oscar Wilde’s stage play
Oscar Wilde was a leader of the late 1800’s Aestheticism Movement. Aesthetics believed in ‘Art for Art’s sake’.
Wilde and the Aesthetics indulged hedonistic pleasures in stark contrast with the puritan morality of the Victorian Era. They treasured beauty over the stark, repulsive grime of industrial society.
Wilde and the Aesthetics tended to avoid making overt social or moral commentary in their art.
Wilde’s 1893 stage play ‘Salome’ embellishes the Biblical story.
In Wilde’s play Salome is fascinated by the imprisoned Jokanaan. Jokanaan not only rejects Salome, but also infuriates her by saying, “By woman came evil into the world.”
Salome agrees to dance for Herod and his guests in return for an unspecified reward.
Wilde named Salome’s festival performance the ‘dance of the seven veils’. The dance is not described in the play, but left up to the imagination and interpretation of the actresses who would portray Salome.
Salome, at her mothers urging, demands the head of the prophet as her reward. Herod tries to change Salome’s mind but she and her mother are adamant.
When Salomé kisses the lips of the decapitated Jokanaan, the horrified and outraged Herod orders hid guards to immediately kill Salome.
Wilde’s decadent and immoral Salome shocked and offended Victorian society.
– Aubrey Beardsley’s art
Aubrey Beardsley was part of the Art Nouveau movement. Beardsley used a black and white linear style of drawing inspired by Japanese artwork. His artwork has been described as flamboyant, elaborate, lavish elegant, bizarre, and grotesque.
Beardsley’s portrayals of women were not just sensual, they were powerful. His morbidly erotic art offended the Victorian audience.
Oscar Wilde asked Beardsley to illustrate the printing of Salomé.
Wilde autographed a copy of the original French edition of Salome he gave Beardsley with, “For Aubrey: for the only artist who, besides myself, knows what the Dance of the Seven Veils is, and can see that invisible dance.”
– Nazimova’s silent film
Alla Nazimova is forgotten today, but 100 years ago she was an international superstar of the stage and screen.
By the 1920’s Nazimova was powerful enough to start her own production company.
Since Nazimova had cultivated an image of being a decadent and dangerous femme fatale, she decided to film and extravagant, violent, and decadent version of Oscar Wilde’s play Salome.
Nazimova chose Natacha Rambova to design sets and costumes inspired by Aubrey Beardsley’s art.
It was rumored that the movie had an all gay cast. Today Salome is considered an LGBTQ cult classic.
Perhaps the first ‘art house’ films to emerge from 1920’s bohemian Hollywood, Salome was a box office bomb.
United Artists promised that Salome would be “an orgy of sex and sin” , but the movie was too restrained for salacious movie goers. At the same time, more mainstream audiences considered the film sacrilegious.
– The Wanton Woman
Salome and Herodias are stereotypes of the cruel, sinful, vengeful wanton woman who deliberately causes harm, destruction, and ruin to men.
Today’s authoritarian right are triggered by strong women. Cultural characterizations of women as femme fatales, sirens, succubus, or vamps motivate authoritarians to rebuild a patriarchal society.
The current authoritarian right seeks to control women by limiting their rights.
– Wilde, Beardsley, Nazimova
Just a year after the English publication of Salome, Wilde was arrested for homosexual conduct. Imprisonment weaked his health. Wilde died at age 46 in 1900.
In 1898 Aubrey Beardsley died of tuberculosis at the age of 25.
After ‘Salome’ died at the box office Nazimova Productions folded.
Wilde, Beardsley, and Nazimova may have intended their art to be an avant-garde commentary on societal norms.
Unfortunately – perhaps unintentionally- they chose a subject for their art that would perpetuate an archetype that continues to animate the misogyny of the authoritarian right.
Sources
https://www.christianity.com/wiki/people/why-we-need-to-observe-the-two-salomes-in-the-bible.html
https://www.themarginalian.org/2016/01/25/aubrey-beardsley-oscar-wilde-salome/
https://www.theartstory.org/artist/beardsley-aubrey/
https://www.rsc.org.uk/salome/
https://silentfilm.org/salome/
https://journals.openedition.org/cve/2730
https://www.cooperhewitt.org/2021/06/22/theres-something-about-salome/
https://www.bookey.app/quote-author/aubrey-beardsley
https://www.metmuseum.org/toah/hd/artn/hd_artn.htm
https://graememurphy.com/wordpress/the-story-of-salome/
https://salomenazimova.wordpress.com/about-2/
https://www.collinsdictionary.com/us/dictionary/english/wanton
https://www.bibleodyssey.com/articles/salome-daughter-of-herodias/
https://www.univ.ox.ac.uk/news/wildes-salome/
https://www.tabletmag.com/sections/arts-letters/articles/alla-nazimova-sapphic-hollywood
https://silentfilm.org/salome/
https://www.proquest.com/docview/2530037751?sourcetype=Scholarly%20Journals
https://www.coursehero.com/lit/Salome/plot-summary/
Thanks and a tip of the hat to Napoleon Sarony/ Adam Cueited States Library of Congress’s Prints (Wilde); Frederick Hollyer (Beardsley); University of Washington: Special Collections (Nazimova); and Fogg Art Museum (Salome) for the images.
