The above image is the published cover of the Yellow Book magazine in 1894 illustrated by Aubrey Beardsley. It is an illustration of sexual temptation as the man with a mask stands behind the woman with a sly smirk, and his head tilting downwards at her neck area, hinting at something suspicious. The woman smiles joyously at his actions. The colours differ from Beardsley’s usual choice of colours of black and white. Sabine Doran states “ ‘yellow had been a colour that stigmatized sexual deviance [and in] the Middle Ages prostitutes were forced to wear yellow signs’” (qtd. Victorian Web 11). Beardsley's cover for Yellow Book is sexually promiscuity to the forefront, challenging Victorian norms. The sexually promiscuous depiction must have faced some reactions from the public and may be why his work is opposed by so many. In Linda Zatlin’s “Beardsley, Japonisme, and the perversion of the Victorian Ideal”, she shares that the “Beardsley woman……has sexual requirements of her own” (4).
Beardsley, Aubrey, and Henry Harland, editors. The Yellow Book: An Illustrated Quarterly. vol. 1. E. Mathews & J. Lane; Copeland & Day, 1894. https://archive.org/details/yellowapril189401uoft/page/n5/mode/2up . Accessed 8 Dec. 2024
Cooke, Simon. “The Yellow Book's Bindings.” The Victorian Web, victorianweb.org, https://victorianweb.org/victorian/art/design/books/cooke43.html. Accessed 8 December 2024.
Zatlin, Linda Gertner. Beardsley, Japonisme, and the Perversion of the Victorian Ideal. Cambridge University Press, 1997, p. 4. https://archive.org/details/bwb_P8-DGI-928/page/n17/mode/1up. Accessed 8 December 2024.