A Footnote
This is plate number 21 in the lithographic edition by Rossel and Vidal for Les yeux ouverts in 1970.
This work is a symbolic self-portrait by Aubrey Beardsley, originally published in 1896 in The Savoy magazine.
In this scene, the artist depicts himself in stylized clothing, tied by the ankles to a herm or decorative post.
Unlike other plates in this same edition, this piece preserves the original clean surface and lacks a border.
The publication of this series in the 1970 Érotiques collection was a direct response to the cultural impact of Beardsley’s major retrospective exhibition at the Victoria and Albert Museum in London in 1966. That exhibition removed the stigma of obscenity that had been attached to these illustrations and generated a wave of interest that decisively influenced the aesthetics of psychedelia and editorial design in the 1970s.
From a biographical perspective, Beardsley produced these plates in the final stage of his life, marked by tuberculosis, which would cause his death at the age of 25. As a central figure of the decadent and aestheticist movement, his style was deeply influenced by Japonisme and ukiyo-e prints.
The historical importance of the Les Érotiques portfolio lies in its ability to act as a bridge between the provocation of the fin de siècle and the modernity of the 20th century.
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