It’s hard to believe this is paint. The severed head appears still to be thinking deep thoughts as it is lowered on to a plate held by Salome, who looks away with what seems like an understated expression of embarrassment rather than full blooded shame. An older woman, somewhat in shadow, clasps her hand. The executioner holding John The Baptist’s head, occupies most of the canvas and, while his face seems to indicate it’s all a bit…regrettable, it’s all in a day’s work for him, albeit a day more exquisitely composed, more finely lit than most. Because this is a Caravaggio painting.
There’s a lot going on, and it seems the balance is perfect. But in this esteemed group of onlookers at the National Gallery, there is one who has decided to give this little scene a much needed shot in the arm. Holding his phone above the heads of the people, he tries to get a shot of the painting. But something’s missing. It’s not very…..now…. is it?
He beckons over his partner. She positions herself somewhat unconvincingly in front of the painting, forcing John The Baptist’s unfortunate noggin to play second fiddle in the frame to a living head, which is now smiling and seemingly is still attached to the body of the girlfriend. John appears to look away with a whole new expression now. If he could role his eyes, he would. This new couple are transforming and, dare I say it…yes…reimagining, recontextualising the work itself.
They are in the way, let’s face it.
But I can see this guy’s point. I mean, let’s say this lot are all a bit blank faced, no one seems remotely shocked at such an atrocity, and there’s no sense that anyone is learning anything from the experience. Perhaps a meme-ish caption to accompany the ill fated head might help.
“You don’t know what you’ve got til it’s gone” springs to mind (thanks Joni).
As for the woman now added to the scene? Well, the flat footed dazzle of the camera’s sensor may well render, in its enhancements, her face more memorable than it seems to me. I wish Caravaggio had been there to capture it, he’d have been right at home painting in the dark, but possibly disappointed at the blue-ish bland haze of the phones. “Woman’s Face Blocking Biblical Scene”….start your bidding ladies and gentlemen.
And so another event is marked. We were here, they may think, if they ever look back at this photo (they won’t). Caravaggio’s paintings are full of the violence of his own life as a murderer on the run, yet the incredible precision of the work speaks of a paradoxical ability to escape it. What does this photo say about its owners’ lives? Salome was told she could have anything she wanted, and when she got it she realised its all in the build up. (Room service is never all it’s cracked up to be.) Perhaps the metaphorical power of John’s head, on a plate, which is where we seem to have everything we want at the moment, lives on.
Brother Face 