Today we call ‘consumption’ Tuberculosis (or TB). Many people at the time thought that Beardsley’s obsession with erotic art came from the fact that he was young and ‘consumptive’. Beardsley was often deliberately trying to be provocative. But he failed to spot the penis-shaped candles the artist had drawn in the foreground, and the erection of the figure to the left.īeardsley’s obsession with the erotic played upon Victorian taboos. John Lane, who was Beardsley’s publisher, demanded that Beardsley cover the page on the right’s genitalia with a fig-leaf. Herodias’s breasts are exposed but she is covered by the large cloak. To the bottom right there is a caricature of Oscar Wilde holding a copy of Salome and gesturing up at his own play. Beardsley drew erotic and satirical images, some of which were entirely unrelated to the plot of play.Įnter Herodias shows the moment when Salome’s mother enters the stage. Wilde originally wrote the play in French, and he chose Beardsley to illustrate the English translation of the play. You can find more artists to learn about here.Enter Herodias is named after a stage direction in Oscar Wilde’s play Salome. The original drawing of “ Arthur and the Strange Mantle” is currently in a private collection.įor more on Aubrey Beardsley, please visit his short biography here. This lithograph was located between pages 132 and 133 in the original publication. In Beardsley’s illustration, the mantle in question is being offered to Arthur who holds out his hand to it. When the messenger wears the mantle, she is burned to ashes. The King tells the messenger that he will only take the mantle after the messenger wears it first. Fortunately, Arthur is warned of this deceiving device by the Lady of the Lake. In Malory’s version of the King Arthur story, Morgan le Fey, Arthur’s evil sister, tries to kill Arthur by sending him an enchanted mantle that will burn and kill whoever wears it. The text was modernized for a new, younger audience. The Beardsley illustrated edition was initially released in 1893 under the glorious and lengthy title, The Birth Life and Acts of King Arthur of His Noble Knights of the Round Table Their Marvelous Enquests and Adventures The Achieving of the San Greal and in the End the Morte DArthur with the Dolorous Death and Departing out of This World of Them All. This piece is one of Beardsley’s illustrations of Sir Thomas Malory’s Le Morte d’Arthur, a collection of 360 pieces that he made when he was just 21 years old. “Arthur and the Strange Mantle” is a lithograph by the English Art Nouveau and Aesthetic illustrator, Aubrey Beardsley, from 1893. Today I will highlight one of my favorite illustrators.

“Arthur and the Strange Mantle”, Aubrey Beardsley, 1893, lithograph.

Strange Doorways by Paul Beardsley