The Apparition
Gustave Moreau
GUSTAVE MOREAU, 1876. WATERCOLOR.
Salome danced for King Herod, and was rewarded with any gift that her heart desired. Spurred by her mother, who harboured open resentment towards John the Baptist for his public reprove of her marriage to the king, Salome requested the head of the imprisoned prophet. Herod, regretful but true to his word, obliged. The story appears twice in the bible, though Salome remains unnamed in both, and it became a subject of desire, obsession and inspiration for hundreds of artists through the renaissance to modernity who depicted Salome and the scene in paint, stone and pencil. None, however, were quite like Moreau’s. In a setting of pure, indulgent opulence, where both the background and the figures are adorned in ornamentation and luxury, John’s head appears not on a platter but as an apparition, floating in a halo of light and gold as thick, rich blood drips from his neck. It is a deeply surreal scene, both erotic and disturbing in which we cannot know whether the apparition is a shared hallucination, a real appearance or purely the vision of Salome herself.