Iokanaan

The biblical story says that John the Baptist was imprisoned by Herod, tetrarch (king under the Roman empire) of Galilei. The Apostle had been arrested for denouncing Herod's divorce from his wife Phasaelis and his illegal marriage to Herodias, his brother's former wife, seen as an immoral seductress by John. Herod respects the Apostle as a holy man and knows that killing the Baptist would cause rioting in Galilei. Held in the cistern of Herod's palace, John's fate is uncertain as we awaits the tetrarch's decision.

In the palace, Herodias wants her husband to kill the Apostle, to avenge her honor. Finding herself incapable of convincing her husband, Herodias plots to have her daughter Salome seduce her stepfather. The girl promises she will dance the Dance of Seven Veils for him, in exchange for something she desires. Herod promises anything up to half of his kingdom. After the dance, Salome relentlessly demands for the head of the Apostle, forcing the tetrarch to choose between killing him or foregoing his promise and failing with his honor as king.

Hesitantly, Herod orders the execution of John the Baptist.

In a trip to Portugal in 2018, I fell obsessed with the paintings of enormous hearts by artist Salomé Nascimento in my room at the Lost Lisbon hostel. In a lazy afternoon, toying with the artist's name, I researched her biblical namesake and found Oscar Wilde's delicious play. In it, instead of being lead by her mother's Machiavellian schemes, Salome is portrayed as a dangerous and spoiled girl who knows how to use sex to bend even a king to her whim. A girl who plots on her own the death of John the Baptist, the only man how refuses to kowtow to her advances, denouncing her as equally immoral as her mother.

I was interested in the men in the play. On one side, the Apostle is portrayed as a holy man, completely devout and prepared to die for his principles. He doesn't seem to suffer cravings of the flesh, being instead in complete control of his urges. He doesn't even scream as the executioner moves to behead him.

On the other side Herod is a profligate, hedonistic king, given to his most primal instincts. He is easy prey for Salome, as a man who has no control over himself. He momentarily regains his patriarchal power at the end of the play, punishing his stepdaughter for the spoiled girls she is. However, punishment arrives too late, the Baptist is dead and the tetrarch has revealed himself to be a eak and frivolous king.

Shen the desire to create this painting first came up, I considered titling it “Wilde Salomé”. But I soon found out of a film directed by Al Pacino with that title and I didn't like the reference. The film looked like something cobbled up hastily, with stylistic choices that didn't appeal to me. There were many other interesting references.

The was the play's original text, illustrated in Audrey Beardsley's Art Nouveau style, in illustrations that didn't shy away from a subject that often conjured an almost pornographic eroticism.

There was "Fatale", the virtual tableau created by Tale of Tales, which placed little contemporary details in a period scene and covered everything in a mist that favored a dream-like ambience.

There was director Ken Russel's “Salomé’s Last Dance”, which gave Oscar Wilde's play and the contexto of the author's life a sort of satyrical sexploitation vibe, not unlike "Rocky Horror Picture Show", which seemed to me like the debauched aesthetic that Wilde intended with the play. Even though it wasn't the vibe I was aiming for in my own work.

Finally, there was a lot of tradition in painting. From Gustav Moreau's symbolism, through Henry Regnault to the more contemporary brushwork of Italian painter Saturno Buttó.

Not long ago, I read a review of Wild's play which accused it of misogyny. After all, there are only two female figures in it, both quite insidious. The author was gay after all. Which was a crime in England at that time. Wilde sough refuge from his marriage to Constance Lloyd in his secret relationship with Alfred "Bosie" Douglas, who would later translate "Salome" from the original French into English. Wilde's homosexuality is no excuse for the misogyny in the text. But I do feel it puts the play in context. He was apt to have a negative view of women in his life.

The play drew my attention at first because of the exchange between Salome, Herod and John. Because of all the times I found myself in each of these roles. But most of all because of my contempt for people who approached me believing the promise of sex would drive me to promise "half of my kingdom" like Herod. Because of the the way that assumption seemed to bestialize me, to turn me into that foolish generalization of a man who "only wants one thing".

That feeling made me change the title of the painting to Iokanaan (the Hebrew name for John) and alter the background's vanishing point so that the painting would veer more towars the head of the Baptist. The composition resists the obviousness of only highlighting the naked girl. The contrast of colors does highlight the girl, but the perspective lines deny some of her power, albeit it a moment too late, like Herod at the end of the play. I didn't want Salome to steal the scene completely, as she did in all of the literature and paintings I had seen, obfuscating the figure of John the Baptist.

When I began to sketch the painting, I was quickly drawn to the coincidence between in my brother's name: João (John). Though we are not practicers of traditional religions, his lifestyle is much more attuned to spirituality than me, much more resistant to worldly temptations, which makes him the ideal reference for the Apostle.

It occurs to me that Salome's story, as told by Wilde and reimagined in "Fatale" appeals to me as a conflict of denials. The Baptist denies Salome the pleasure she feels seeing men debasing themselves for her. Salome denies the Apostle the respect he seeks as a holy man. The game goes on as long as both of them nurture hopes that the other will give in.

I myself am no holy man like John the Baptist, nor a seducer like Salome. But I am reminded of stalemates like this happening for other reasons in my twenties. The ones where both parties attracted and repelled Estou a caminho!h other in equal measure and the tension kept the relationship suspended in mid-air.

Iokanaan

February 2021

Solvent transfer and oil on recycled paper and gesso

100 x 60 cms