A history of English sexual morals / by Ivan Bloch ; translated by William H. Forstern.

  • Iwan Bloch
Date:
1936
Catalogue details

Licence: In copyright

Credit: A history of English sexual morals / by Ivan Bloch ; translated by William H. Forstern. Source: Wellcome Collection.

    688/700 (page 658)
    the daughter of darkness, the handmaiden of the devil, ar thereafter Beardsley introduced the macabre note ini his work, combining heaven and hell, asceticism and lus English prudery with modern corruption. The chaste wome of Burne-Jones change into prostitutes with practised obscer lips and voluptuous outlines. It is as though an angel ha suddenly begun to writhe hysterically and to use obscer language. It is this combination that lends to Beardsley work its uncanny power. The bestial, animal side of woma was probably never expressed so strikingly as in Beardsley' ' Incipit vita nova ', 6 Messalina ', and ' The Wagnerites In ' Incipit vita nova ' it is night, and woman has a visioi of the embryo. In ' Messalina ' it is also night, and th< priestess of Baal, Messalina, like an infernal fury, sets ou on a tour of plunder. In ' The Wagnerites ' a horde o horrible vampire women are listening in satyriasic con vulsions to the music of Tristan. Beardsley was also a highly original cartoonist, as will be seen from his illustrations to Walter Jerrold's Bon Mots. The representation of erotic subjects is only justified if it is carried out by real artists and intended for those who are capable of appreciating the artistic side. Thus as soon as erotic ' art' is degraded to the lowest kind of pornographic representation intended for the wide masses, it ceases to be artistic, since it appeals to the very instinct which the artistic impression is supposed to overcome in the highest kind of erotic art. In England the lower type of erotic art was represented by obscene playing cards, snuff-boxes and obscene photographs. Playing cards, which were first introduced in England at the end of the fifteenth century, were after 1700 frequently painted with erotic scenes a la Hogarth. Thomas Heywood, of Pendleton, near Manchester, owned a set of such playing cards. One of the cards represented Cupid plucking a rose. Beneath the picture was the verse: [658]