I only found out about Aubrey Beardsley and his illustrations a few nights ago via this really good book. He died from tuberculosis at 25 but the work he knocked out prior to that is fairly extensive and mostly pretty incredible. Generally speaking, he is into empty expanse bordered by detail, tits and an overall aesthetic which somehow straddles ukiyo-e and 80’s cocktail lounge prints whilst retaining a medieval euro look. Given how brilliant his work still looks now, I can only imagine how mindblinding it was when it first came out - the above print (”A Platonic Lament”, accompanying his friend Oscar WIlde’s version of Salome) is from 1894.

Tags: aubrey beardsley, lysistrata, oscar wilde, salome

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