Femme Fatale
...ted, her hands clutching a silver platter which bears the severed head of John the Baptist. Her surroundings create a striking contrast with her demeanour - she is proudly displaying the Baptist‘s head, her facial expressions pleasant and beguiling. The background, painted in bleak desolate colours, allows a subtle hint to the underlying darkness of Salome. Contrary to other femme fatale texts, Cranach’s portrait differs in that it displays both Salome’s charm and allure but also her fatalistic qualities, through the texture, colours and main focus features of the portrait. The painting does not target a specific audience, but appeals to a more general one, though an educated understanding of the femme fatale and the legend of Salome is needed in order to fully comprehend and appreciate it. Dante Rossetti’s “The Orchard Pit” describes another femme fatale. It details an ethereal encounter between a travelling man who is tempted by a beautiful woman. She draws men in with her siren song and lute, feeds them golden apples and sings them to sleep. Upon their awakening, they are unable to continue living in their world because they have experienced her beauty, love and passion and are never satisfied with anything less. She is not depicted as the stereotypical femme fatale, in that her beauty was not preordained to entrap men, but unfortunately ends the lives of all males who venture too close. She is giving the men the only thing available after the “perfect love” of hers that they experienced; there is nothing left but death. Through strong imagery, allusions towards Lilith, and descriptive language, Rossetti is able to construct a precise image of the femme fatale to the...