COVE

This black-and-white wood-block print by Aubrey Beardsley depicts the Page of Herodias mourning the death of the Syrian Captain. "Platonic," in its title, refers to the Greek philosopher Plato. Stylistically, it is in accord with the other illustrations Beardsely produced for Salome, exhibiting the aesthetics of the Art Nouveau and Aestheticist movements of which he was a part. It is highly geometric, most obviously in the depiction of the tree in the midground. It makes use of negative space - the entire upper-left quadrant of the piece is left empty. Both the Page of Herodias and the Syrian Captain are depcited in a remarkably androgynous - perhaps even feminine - manner, possibly suggesting homosexual undertones. It is the second and only other illustration in Salome to include the moon, an important recurring motif in the play. The ambiguous expression with which the face-in-the-moon is depicted in this illustration could perhaps simply signify the Syrian Captain's death (the face's eyes are closed and is largely inanimate), or maybe the Page's anguish and grief (either cordially or romantically, depending on how much one wants to read into the homosexual undertones).

Sources:

The Victorian Web

Navarre, Joan. "Paul Verlaine and A Platonic Lament: Beardsley’s Portrayal of a Parallel Love Story in Wilde’s Salome." English Literature in Transition, 1880-1920, vol. 51 no. 2, 2008, p. 152-163. Project MUSE, doi:10.2487/elt.51.2(2008)0019.