jeudi 21 janvier 2016

The girl in the blue dress






Much has been made over the centuries over Leonardo's "Mona Lisa," much less has been said about del Piombo's "Salome" (1510) in the National Gallery, London.  The author has been arrested by the painting with its three-quarter profile of a contemporaneous Italian beauty with the remarkable gaze, the platter with the head of St. John the Baptist, and the window at right opening on to an expanse of sky and low cerulean mountains, matching in hue the color of Salome's dress.

The confrontational, direct gaze of this Salome is unlike any Renaissance or Baroque portrait that I know of it.  It predates Manet's "Olympia" by over three centuries. 

I would like to explore in this paper the historical background of the painting as well as offer possible interpretations of "the look," of the painting as a whole.




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