June 24th is the feast day of the blessed Baptist John.
My previous post concerning Caravaggio and Catamites featured many lovely depictions of the martyr, I would like to continue , for like Salome many artists have found the fellow captivating.
Of course I am unable to think of Jokanaan without thinking of Oscar, without thinking of his Salome, so why try?
“Jokanaan, I am amorous of thy body!”
Baciccio
1676
City of Manchester art Gallery, Manchester
“How wasted he is!”
El Greco
1600
Fine Arts Museum of San Francisco
“He is like a thin ivory statue. He is like an image of silver. I am sure he is chaste as the moon is. He is like a moonbeam, like a shaft of silver. his flesh must be cool like ivory. I would look closer at him.”
Bernardo strozzi
1615-20
Accademia Lingustica de Belle Arti, Genoa
Jokanaan: “Daughter of sodom, come not near me! But cover thy face with a veil, and scatter ashes upon thine head, and get thee to the desert and seek out the Son of Man.”
Salomé: “Who is he, the Son of Man?Is he as beautiful as thou art, Jokanaan?”
Titian
1542
“Thy body is white like the lilies of a field that the mower hath never mowed.”
Andrea del Sarto
1528
Palazzo Pitti, Florence
‘There is nothing in the world so white as thy body. let me touch thy body.”
Valentin de Boulogne
1625-30
Santa Maria in Via, Camerino
“It is thy mouth that I desire, Jokanaan”
Nicholas Régnier
1610
The Hermitage, Saint Petersburg
“I will kiss thy mouth, Jokanaan, I will kiss thy mouth.”
The Apparition
Gustave Moreau
1876
Louvre
The Beheading of St. John the Baptist
Caravaggio
1608
Salome with the Head of St. John the Baptist
Andrea Solari (1460-1524)
“I will kiss thy mouth, Jokanaan.”
Although we know of Salome’s lust, Saint Jerome (via Omer Englebert The Lives of the Saints) informs us “…that that for a long while Herodias savagely attacked the head of the prophet , repeatedly stabbing his tongue with a dagger.”
Salome’s desire seems decent when compared to mater.
I will close with an image familiar to many of my readers.
I was saddened to discover recently that it is not our dear Oscar in drag playing his most supreme vixen , but is instead an actress, Alice Guszalewice. I will need to look into Alice’s story, but she does look a lot like dear Oscar, so for one Last Dance I will believe it is indeed our hero.
apparently Alice Guszalewice as Salome
I can’t resist this clip from Salome\’s Last Dance, so why try.
In no way was I attempting to be disrespectful or overly ironic concerning the Baptist. I feel that much of what Wilde expressed was deeply reverent, complicated by human frailty, but still quite reverent.
Wishing a happy feast day of Saint Jean-Baptiste, particularly to the Québécois.
Respectfully submitted,
Babylon Baroque
Babylon Baroque 