Aubrey Beardsley's Tailpiece is an illustration that was created for Oscar Wilde's Salomé published in 1893 . The illustration exemplifies themes of horror and the weird, particularly its use of groutesque eroticism. The image highlights two mystical creatures, one masked and one demonic, who are laying a nude women to rest. The figures holding the women do not have fixed definitions of gender or sexuality, instead embodying a distorted hybridized existence that blurs tarditional boundaries. Fernbach notes that Beardsley's illustrations for Salomé showcase "identities [that] are not fixed by gender or sexuality but are instead depicted as doubled, multiple, or shifting." (2) These elements create diverse, transgressive expression of desire, intertwining themes of attraction, repulsion, and power.
Works Cited
Beardsley, Aubrey. "Tailpiece (Aubrey Vincent Beardsley), 1943.642," Harvard Art Museums collections online, Dec 05, 2024, https://harvardartmuseums.org/collections/object/297775
Fernbach, Amanda. "Wilde's 'Salomé' and the Ambiguous Fetish." Victorian Literature and Culture, vol 29, no. 1, pp. 195-218. JSTOR. http://www.jstor.org/stable/25058547