Inspired by Richard Wagner’s Das Rheingold, Aubrey Beardsley’s 1896 illustration, “For the Third Tableau of Das Rheingold,” first appeared in The Savoy magazine. The artwork captures two gods—one of fire, depicted on the right, and the shadowy king of gods to the left. At the fire god's feet lies a strange, serpent-like creature, its large, scaly body blending eerily into the underworld setting like the king of gods. The fire god, standing stark against this unsettling darkness, raises his hands as if to repel the cunning serpent––a gesture that diminishes the god’s agency in the face of a monster––perhaps a reference to the story of Adam, Eve, and the serpent. Beardsley’s juxtaposition of the divine and the grotesque embodies his mystical “anti-aesthetic,” “tainting” beauty with unease to create a strikingly discomforting composition unique to his works and Decadence (Timpano 555).
Works Cited
Beardsley, Aubrey. “For the Third Tableau of Das Rheingold.” The Savoy, vol. 2, April 1896, p. 193. The Savoy Digital Edition, edited by Christopher Keep and Lorraine Janzen Kooistra 2018-2019. Yellow Nineties 2.0, Ryerson University Centre for Digital Humanities, 2019, https://1890s.ca/savoyv2_beardsley_rheingold/
Timpano, Nathan J. “‘His Wretched Hand’: Aubrey Beardsley, the Grotesque Body, and Viennese Modern Art.” Art History, vol. 40, no. 3, 2017, pp. 554–81, https://doi.org/10.1111/1467-8365.12275.