Salomé (2nd version)

Salomé (2nd version, 1900), at the Museum der bildenden Künste, shows Corinth returning to one of the most charged subjects of Symbolist and fin-de-siècle art. The Jewish princess who demanded the head of John the Baptist captivated the period's imagination as an emblem of dangerous female sexuality—themes running through Wilde's play (1891), Strauss's opera (1905), and countless canvases. Corinth's second treatment registers this fascination but with his characteristic physical directness that avoids the decorative refinement of Symbolist predecessors like Moreau or Klimt. Where they stylised Salomé into a fatal aesthetic object, Corinth insists on embodied presence, making the subject both more immediate and more disturbing.

The figure is painted with a fleshy immediacy that distinguishes Corinth's approach from more stylised treatments. His brushwork is energetic and loaded, giving Salomé's presence a carnal weight that underscores the narrative's erotic charge. Drapery and accessories are handled loosely against the more sustained rendering of the face and body.