The Evolution Of The Image Of Salome And Its Cultural Interpretation

Salome, in the Bible of the first century, was an unnamed princess of Judea; in Jewish Antiquities, she was the Queen of Lesser Armenia; in the Middle Ages, aimed at propagating Christianity, she was described as a marginal character to set off the martyrdom of John the Baptist in the illustration of the Bible and the sculptures or the murals in churches; in the Renaissance, she became the beautiful heroines of many famous portrait painters; in the fin-de-siecle, she was portrayed as a"femme fatale"in both literature and art. In 2,000 years, the evolution of Salome's image witnessed the history of European social development, including many fields such as religion, politics, ethics, and arts, which became a special cultural phenomenon. In this evolution, the Asceticism of Christianity, the Humanism of Renaissance, the Orientalism, Sexual Politics and Aesthetic Modernity played important roles. Influenced by different literary and artistic thoughts and fascinated by the figure of Salome, many writers and artists in different ages portrayed Salome as different images, which formed a"Salome Complex".In the joint of the 19th and 20th centuries, China was experiencing the modern enlightenment with the Western thoughts coming into China and it also joined into the Salome craze. As a result of the special historical situation and cultural context at that time, the image of Salome in the western culture of fin-de-siecle was interpreted as an image representing China's enlightenment modernity, accompanied by the translations, performances and parodies of Salome. Thus, Salome, as a cultural phenomenon, entered the history of China's modern literature and became a very important part of it.The purpose of this dissertation is to study the image evolution of Salome from the angle of historical development and interpret the cultural connotations behind her different images. Besides the Introduction and the Conclusion, the dissertation consists of six chapters.Chapter One is an archaeological study of the prototype of Salome in the Bible and Jewish Antiquities and tries to reveal the secret of Salome's Dance which aroused the creative inspiration of many writers and artists in different ages.Chapter Two reviews the different images of Salome in visual arts during more than 1,000 years in the Middle Ages and discusses the cultural reasons of Salome's evolution from a marginal character subordinated to the great Baptist to the subjects represented by many artists.From Chapter Three, the dissertation begins the study of Salome's images in the Western literature in the late 19th century. It focuses on the Romantic Salome portrayed by Heine, Flaubert and Massenet.Chapter Four deals with the images of Salome represented by those Symbolist writers and painters, such as, Moreau, Huysmans and Laforgue. The literary description of Moreau's paintings by Huysmans made Salome a cultural phenomenon attracting masters in both fields of literature and painting. Laforgue's parody, Salome, mocks the turbulent history, politics, and revolutions of France and the traditional outlook on women, which reveals its distinctive critical and self-reflexive functions.Chapter Five is the emphasis of this dissertation, which studies the image of Salome of Aestheticism and Decadence in 1890s. Wilde's tragedy, Beardsley's illustrations and Strauss's opera succeeded in creating the final image of Salome a household name. Being the pioneer of Modernism, together with Symbolism, Aestheticism and Decadence worked as the overture of Aesthetic Modernity. Although it only lasted a very short period of time, its role cannot be replaced. The function of"rescue"played by the sensual beauty of the arts has been the topic of both artists and theorists, which is proved by the craze and cult of Salome.Chapter Six explores the two extreme interpretations of the Aesthetic and Decadent Salome in China from 1920s to 1940s. One is the"un-decadent"interpretation represented by Tian Han, and the other is the"decadent"interpretation represented by Shao Xunmei. Although contradictory, both of them witnessed the efforts of the Modernist writers for creating China's Modernity.The conclusion summarizes the cultural meanings of Salome Complex, which includes Religion, Orientalism, Feminism and Aestheticism.Through the evolution in 2,000 years, the image of Salome is still alive and kicking on the stages all over the world. Even at the age of internet and post-modernism, the evolution of Salome's image is still going on, which needs further study and discussion.