Decadence! Controversy! Aesthetics! Oscar Wilde! Aubrey Beardsley's life had them all. A self proclaimed “grotesque”, he once stated, “I have one aim — the grotesque. If I am not grotesque I am nothing.” His other inspirations for the illustrations in The Yellow Book (which he helped published, wrote in, and illustrated), along with his other works, were as varied as pre-Raphaelite painting and Japanese prints. The result we all know and love: the contrasting and decorative art that graced not only works of his good friend Oscar Wilde, but the tales of King Arthur, and posters hung on the college dorm room walls of those so over Klimt's “The Kiss“.
Picasso, Matisse, and Damien Hirst have all sited his importance. A great gift was lost when he died, possibly of tuberculosis (possibly of suicide), at the young age of 25.
But what do you think?