Aubrey Beardsley
I'm still 'eschewing'(!) memes but I couldn't resist this one!
SIMPLY SNICKERS
has given us this picture to think about.
EMBATTLED!
'The Battle of the Beaux and Belles'
What a strange sort of story it tells!
We are given no indication
As to what has caused the odd situation!
Let us just imagine this 'beau' went too far!
(You know what all young gentlemen are!)
There are onlookers too, so I've supposed
That the gentleman kneeling merely proposed!
A 'speech-balloon' could put me right!
And yet there must have been a fight!
A chair knocked over! What a mystery!
With costumes hinting at ancient history!
*
Yet not so mysterious when we scan
An account of Aubrey, artist and man.
All his work was vaguely erotic,
The decoration boldly exotic.
Oscar Wilde was a special friend,
Which tells us a lot about the trend.
Though Aubrey, himself, had no love-life,
Neither a lover nor a wife.
His health was such that he was frail
And merely an asexual male.
*
However, in Aubrey Beardsley's art,
Sexuality played a part.
The above is a very mild example,
Of 'Lysistrata', just a sample.
In a prudish age his imagination
Gave him a reckless reputation.
And the worst of his pictures, he openly said
Should be destroyed when he was dead.
It's sad that someone such as he
Should have died in his twenties of TB.
*
A very different sort of erotica here:
