Salomania in Nineteenth-Century Western Visual Culture

Venue: Agar theatre, Agar Theatre

Presenters: Professor Antonio Baldesarre

Dance and music, as two of the most expressive signifiers of femininity in the European history of ideas, are crucial to understanding the narrative structure of the story of the beheading of John the Baptist as told in the Gospel of Mark (Mark 6:14-29). This narrative unfolds as a parable with a strong Oriental-Hellenic flavour. Its core context is the challenge to the male worldly order by the female, sharpened insofar as both the actual and future orders are threatened, the former presented in the reign of Herod, the latter in the visions of John the Baptist.

Based on a brief analysis of the biblical telling of the story within its historical context, the lecture explores the multiple and intricate transformations the story underwent in European culture, with a special emphasis on nineteenth-century Salomania, and the function of dance and music within this process. As was already the case with the Gospel of Mark, all these transformations first and foremost are variations of the male imago of an Oriental-Jewish woman who threatens the male order of life with her dancing, and thus amalgamates the outwardly contradictory elements of “dance”, “music” and “violence.” This complex interplay was essential for the fascination that Salome exposed in nineteenth-century visual culture, and which eventually made her the epitome of the femme fatale, desired and vilified simultaneously.

The lecture will explore the proposition that both the nineteenth-century fascination for Salome, and the concept of Salome as femme fatale, are closely but not exclusively linked to nineteenth-century Orientalism, taking into account that Salome is a cultural product and daughter of her many fathers’ imaginations.

Professor Antonio Baldassarre is Professor and Head of Research and Development at the Lucerne University of Applied Sciences and Arts, School of Music.

from
https://events.unimelb.edu.au/events/7460-salomania-in-nineteenth-century-western-visual-culture