Ugo Guidi, Salome's dance (1960)

terracotta, h. 62x57x6 cm
Forte dei Marmi, Museo Ugo Guidi

This episode is taken from the Gospel (Marc and Matthew): Salome, daughter of Herodias, danced during a banquet in front of her stepfather Herod Antipas. He admired her dance so much that he wanted to reward her with anything she wanted. Salome, incited by her mother, who hated John the Baptist because he blamed her for her behaviour, asks for the head of the Baptist. His head was brought in the room by a servant, while the observers looked at the scene with great dismay.
Guidi works with a typical technique of Medieval art: he represents many scenes in an unique composition. He describes the moment in which Salome dances and the servant brings the head of the Baptist. The girl is in the centre of the scene and she wears only a skirt, while the observers are dismayed. On the right a woman, maybe Herodias, looks at the scene with a satisfacted smile.
Ugo Guidi manages to represent with few signs the expression of the characters, then their states of mind: the concentration and the happiness of Salome, the satisfaction of Herodias, the emotion of the observers. The Baptist is only rough-hewed: Guidi does not want to linger on the most violent detail of the episode.

A project by
Federico Giannini

Museo Ugo Guidi
(Forte dei Marmi)

Associazione Amici
del Museo Ugo Guidi
Onlus


Humanities
Computing

University of Pisa