Domenichino, 'Head of the Baptist', c.1630

 

The open mouth is not normally featured in art. Yet, it seems to be the very epicentre of the canvas here. Domenichino uses the faintest dots of white lead to pick out the teeth of John the Baptist within the dark abyss of the mouth. Meanwhile, the lips are grey and sickly as life swiftly leaves the decapitated head, with the colours serving to contrast the bright red blood seeping from the severed neck. Sitting centrally on the plate, the open mouth is at odds to the heavily closed, sunken eyes. Although the saint is now unseeing, his mouth seems to suggest a final breath exiting his body, the last gasp of life which produces an almost sensory, audible quality to the painting, or even a death rattle. The singular, central crease in the pristine, white tablecloth sitting directly below the gaping darkness equally serves to draw the viewer’s eye to the open mouth. Perhaps Domenichino is even suggesting that the last breath of John the Baptist is just strong enough to flutter the tablecloth, creasing it beneath the head and golden plate.

Through the open mouth, Domenichino creates a canvas of circles and rectangles, Platonic forms which bring harmony and balance to an otherwise gruesome scene. Firstly, the piece is divided into two planes: an empty black background and a white tablecloth. This is punctuated by the golden plate, a halo below John the Baptist which is further matched by the thin, gold line of the halo around his severed head. Domenichino emphasises the saint’s divinity in the work repeatedly. Even his thick, brown hair seems to flow around the head, producing yet another circular form, again in reference to the halo. Despite these two-dimensional shapes which Domenichino frequently employs, the artist has masterfully used light and shade to evoke a three-dimensional plate. The rim rises off the white tablecloth from its dark underside, ‘lifting’ the plate in an enhanced presentation of the head, offering it to a viewer. Additionally, the gold detailing around the edge of the plate furthers the tactility and immediacy of the presentation.   

Domenichino emphasises his skill in producing light and shade through the face itself, as light frontally hits the ghostly pallor of the subject. The eyes have already sunk back into the skull, creating a skeletal effect with large pouches under the closed eyes framed by dark eyebrows. The face is shrouded in the beard and hair of the Baptist, detailed with a softness of brushwork that is almost delicate and gentle, again at odds to the gruesome subject matter. Domenichino has, however, kept the horror to a minimum. The red blood is not oozing out of the wound, it is not cascading down the plate and spilling out into the viewer’s space. Life exits John the Baptist through his facial features and particularly his open mouth, not from the wound at his neck. This is a portrait of the head of a man who now experiences death right before the viewer’s eyes.