Herodias with the head of John the Baptist
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| Herodias with the head of John the Baptist |
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| Paul Hippolyte Delaroche , 1843 |
| Oil on canvas |
| 129 × 98 cm |
| Wallraf-Richartz-Museum & Fondation Corboud , Cologne |
Herodias with the head of John the Baptist is a painting by Paul Delaroche from 1843. This picture belongs to a series of quite different pictures of the same type of portrait that were painted by different painters over several centuries.
This independent half- figure portrait type has been developing since around the 15th century . With its emergence from the Renaissance onwards , the biblical female figures of Salome and Judith were mixed , in which the different pictorial symbolism was also mixed. The female figures are partially isolated from the biblical context and each depicted as a young blonde woman with long hair with or without a head covering, with or without an accompanying figure and the so-called Johannessschüssel or a sword.
plant
Two roughly life-size female persons are depicted in a kind of half-length portrait . The tall woman in the foreground is shown standing upright from the side with her head turned towards us. The second, smaller woman, standing more in the background of a room, opens or closes a flowing curtain with her right hand. Her left hand lies on her lips with a bent index finger, lost in thought. The room in the background is dark and is covered by a second, much more voluminous curtain. The picture itself is completed by a rectangular frame with a bezel in the upper part and thus supports the size of the people depicted.
The woman in the foreground is wearing a wrap dress made of the finest brocade-like silk with an embroidered edge. Neck, shoulder and a large cleavage are visible. The light skin color, reminiscent of porcelain, had, among other things, a sexual connotation when the picture was created . The silk robe is also underpinned by another red, expressively folded velvet dress, which can almost be felt in its materiality. Stepping out of it, we see the sleeve of a semi-transparent chiffon blouse, which falls in equally expressive waves. A loose pearl bracelet is around the wrist of the woman. Her dark hair is carefully combed to the sides of her head and braided into a braid with a light cloth and a second golden cloth with individual gold threads.
The second woman wears less elegant clothes, her hair is partially covered by a wool-like orange scarf that also covers her upper body in some opulent folds. The face and hands are dark in color.
In the left foreground a kind of side table is partially shown, on the surface of which an elaborately designed bronze bowl stands. This contains the head of a man, tilted upwards, with closed eyes, draped like a bowl of fruit. There are no obvious injuries or traces of blood from the decapitation . In addition, the head appears to be cosmetically trimmed, hair and beard appear well-groomed and combed. The man's face is not distorted by a convulsive expression of death.
The woman in the foreground is grasping the bowl with her left hand as if to suggest a present.
Your gaze is not directed at the Johanness bowl and is not filled with disgust, shame or despair. Rather, it seems as if she is looking into herself extremely confidently and with subtle satisfaction. This view allows many interpretations of the emotional state. Delaroche achieved this by making the white of the eye stand out below the pupil. The servant in the background seems to be brooding.
Historical context
The bible passage ( Mk 6,17-29 LUT ) tells of a girl from Herod's family who dances in front of Herod Antipas and as a reward - at the instigation of Antipas' wife ( Herodias ) - demands the head of John the Baptist . According to Mt 6:17 LUT , John the Baptist had criticized the marriage of Herod Antipas to the wife of his half-brother and was then imprisoned. The Gospels therefore attribute the end of John the Baptist to his criticism of Herod's marriage to Herodias ( Mk 6,17-20 LUT ).
Josephus ( Roman - Jewish historian ), on the other hand, names Herod's fear of an uproar caused by the Baptist as a political motive.
It is controversial among Bible Students whether the story of Herod and Herodias is a correct account of Matthias and Mark.
The name Salome does not appear in the Bible for the daughter of Herodias. It is only detectable after the 5th century.
In our picture the wife of Herod named Herodias is shown with a servant and the head of John in a bowl.
Painting style
Paul Delaroche was a painter of French academicism . Accordingly, his pictures are characterized by many model studies, watercolor sketches and precise knowledge of individual details . The present painting is determined by particularly elaborately painted fabrics. For this, several layers of paint are diluted with painting media and applied one on top of the other without leaving a brush trace . The lighting is used just as lavishly to create folds and the sheen of the fabrics. In this way, the entire painting takes on the appearance of a "historically transfigured" realism as a stage arrangement.
interpretation
Two different interpretations are represented in the literature. Another theological context of interpretation can be ruled out in the period after the French Revolution .
History pictures are used to deliberately transfigure historical, mythological or Old Testament contexts. They want to teach or enlighten, sometimes take a political stance or agitate .
"The almost unprecedented success that Paul Delaroche had as a history painter throughout his life ... coincides ... with the flowering of historiography in France". With his history pictures, he wanted to distinguish himself not only as a painter but also as a historian .. "This one Painter has no preference for the past itself, but for its representation, for the illustration of its spirit, for writing history with colors. ”Another“ visual ”evidence is one of his main works: Napoleon in Fontainebleau after his defeat in 1814 Years after Napoleon's historical defeat (1845) and is a prime example of his history painting. The great attention to detail in the painting gives the impression of reality, although we are again looking at a kind of stage arrangement.
Why did Delaroche choose a New Testament story in which an enormously confident woman played a crucial role? This question gives rise to a further interpretation of the painting.
To do this, we fall back on the socio-political realities in France in the 19th century .
At the storming of the Bastille in 1789 , women had a significant share.
The demand for women's rights was therefore part of the revolution.
After the fall of Napoleon , the victorious powers wanted to restore the old social order in the so-called " Restoration " at the Vienna Congress , which was only partially successful and in the further course there was the July Revolution of 1830 and then further revolutions in Europe.
Although the story of Herodias and Salome is actually just a marginal narrative from the Bible, it had a major impact on 19th century painting and literature. “Neither Herodias nor her daughter kill themselves, they let kill - a combination of female seduction (dance) and skillful tactics (using a harmless promise for such a cruel purpose) leads them to their goal. That fact just made the story ... popular. "
Paul Delaroche answers the question about Herodias' type of woman insofar as he assigns her the role of a protagonist through an erotic charisma and portrays her as a historical specimen of a femme fatale . "The male world was able to justify its fear of women who are emancipating themselves or even matriarchy by referring to the unpredictability of women who manifest themselves in this scene."
This again corresponds to the taste of the times.
The "representation of Herodias ... had great success with the public and was awarded a gold medal at the Brussels Salon ."
"The picture ... is particularly effective because of its psychological moments and of course also because of its high level of perfection in the technical details that betray the strict school of the Paris Academy" and is one of the highlights of the collection of the Wallraf-Richards Museum & Fondation Corboud .
Provenance
Acquired in 1890 as a gift from the museum association.
Selection of further "Salomed representations" by other artists
Salome, 1530, Lukas Cranach
Salome 1550 Titian
Salome with the head of John the Baptist, 1607, Caravaggio
Salome Gustav Moreau 1876
Gertrud Eysoldt as "Salome", 1903, Louis Corinth
Salome, 1909, Gustav Klimt
literature
- Rudolf Zeitler: Propylaea art history. 19th century art. Berlin 1990.
- Musée d'Orsay: Les peintres, le Salon, la critique, 1848–1870.
Individual evidence
- ^ Charlotte Sattig: Caravaggio dethroned Salome . In: Master thesis at the University of Vienna . 2017, p. 76 ff .
- ^ Anna Greve: Colonial Heritage in Museums: Critical Whiteness Research in Practical Museum Work . In: Edition Museum . tape 42 , 2019.
- ↑ a b Heinrich Heine: Works and letters in ten volumes . tape 4 . Berlin / Weimar ( zeno.org ).
- ↑ C. Romfeld: 2. Josephus on John the Baptist (Antiquitates Judaicae XVIII 5,2 §116-119). Retrieved February 15, 2020 .
- ^ P. Meier: A Marginal Jew: Rethinking the Historical Jesus (Anchor Bible Reference Library) . New York 1994, p. 171 ff .
- ^ Salome. Retrieved February 15, 2020 .
- ↑ Hans Vollmer : Delaroche, Paul (actually Hippolyte) . In: Ulrich Thieme (Hrsg.): General Lexicon of Fine Artists from Antiquity to the Present . Founded by Ulrich Thieme and Felix Becker . tape 8 : Coutan-Delattre . EA Seemann, Leipzig 1912, p. 591–594 ( Textarchiv - Internet Archive - here p. 593, left column).
- ↑ a b c Women Power - for International Women's Day on March 8th. Retrieved February 19, 2020 .
- ↑ a b Stephanie Sonntag, Andreas Blühm (ed.): Wallraf das Museum . 3. Edition. DuMont, Cologne 2016, p. 264 .