14. Salome Receives the Head of John the Baptist
In this, one of his last paintings, Caravaggio returns again to the beheading of St John the Baptist. In a sense, it is a sequel to the event of the monumental painting of subject he produced during his brief stay on Malta. There, we saw John the Baptist shortly before he lost his head, and here we see the result of that incident. Salome, we must remember, was promised anything in the world by Herod because of her seductive dancing at his feast. Requesting the Baptist’s head on a platter was her mother’s idea. But does she look happy?
Salome, holding the platter, is anything but. She turns her gaze from the grisly, severed head whilst the other two figures gaze directly at it. Salome looks somewhat jaded by the whole thing, whilst the old woman – possibly her mother, Herodias – has a paradoxical expression of mourning. Even the executioner, who still brandishes his sword, lacks any sense of triumph and in fact seems profoundly miserable. Once again, the glorious moment of a Biblical event, at which St John was martyred and thus began his eternal life in heaven, is reduced to the bare bones of human tragedy.
John Gash has aptly called the painting ‘a profound meditation on death and human malevolence’. The painting may in fact relate to events in Caravaggio’s own life. The subject matter itself directly concerns the Order of St John, and Caravaggio actually sent it to Alof de Wignacourt. The overwhelming sense of futility may be a plea for an end to the vendetta pursued for events in Malta: the painting suggests that revenge does not bring satisfaction, and the contrast of beautiful girl and withered crone suggests that they never end. The head on the platter is, tellingly, another penitential self-portrait.