Salomé

Fin-de-siècle Europe turned Salome into an obsession, parading her deadly dance in operas, ballets, poems, paintings, and more. (By one count, 82 percent of all Salome works date between 1860 and 1920.) Now characterized as poisonous and depraved, she was the perfect symbol of the culture's decadent mood and its new wariness of female power. Alphonse Mucha's Salome is erotic and exotic in her filmy costume and stylized hair, an Art Nouveau staple. Her half-closed eyes stare provocatively, reflecting Mucha's interest in the new field of hypnotic suggestion.