[Illustration: THE BARON'S PRAYER _From "The Rape of the Lock"_]
A series of grotesques to decorate some rather silly anthologies produced in the same year as the "Morte d'Arthur" are marvels of ingenuity, and far more characteristic. With them he began a new period, throwing over the deliberate archaism and mediævalism, of which he began to tire. In the illustrations to "Salomé," he reached the consummation of the new convention he created for himself; they are, collectively, his masterpiece. In the whole range of art there is nothing like them. You can trace the origin of their development, but you cannot find anything wherewith to compare them; they are absolutely unique. Before commencing "Salomé" two events contributed to give Beardsley a fresh impetus and stimulate his method of expression: a series of visits to the collection of Greek vases in the British Museum (prompted by an essay of Mr D. S. McColl), and to the famous Peacock Room of Mr Whistler, in Prince's Gate--one the antithesis of Japan, the other of Burne-Jones. Impressionable at all times to novel sensations, his artistic perceptions vibrated with a new and inspired enthusiasm. Critical appreciation under his pen meant creation. From the Greek vase painting he learned that drapery can be represented effectually with a few lines, disposed with economy, not by a number of unfinished scratches and superfluous shading. If the "Salomé" drawings have any fault at all, it is that the texture of the pictures suggests some other medium than pen and ink, as Mr Walter Crane has pointed out in his other work. They are wrought rather than drawn, and might be designs for the panel of a cabinet, for Limoges or Oriental enamel. "The Rape of the Lock" is, therefore, a more obvious example of black and white art. Beardsley's second period lasted until the fourth volume of the Yellow Book, in which the "_Wagnerites_" should be mentioned as one of the finest. In 1896 Beardsley, many people think to the detriment of his style, turned his attention to the eighteenth century, in the literature of which he was always deeply interested. Eisen, Moreau, Watteau, Cochin, Pietro Longhi, now became his masters. The alien romantic art of Wagner often supplied the theme and subject. The level of excellence sustained throughout the Savoy Magazine is extraordinary, in view of the terrible state of his health. His unexampled precision of line hardly ever falters; and while his composition gains in simplicity, his capacity for detail has not flagged. It is, perhaps, an accident that in his most pathetic drawing, "_The Death of Pierrot_," his hand seems momentarily to have lost its cunning. The same year he gave us "The Rape of the Lock," regarded by some artists as the testament of his genius; and an even more astonishing set of drawings to the "Lysistrata" of Aristophanes. These are grander than the "Rape of the Lock," and larger in treatment than anything he ever attempted. Privately issued, Beardsley was able to give full rein to a Rabelaisian fantasy, which he sometimes cultivated with too great persistence. Irritated by what he considered as over-niceness in some of his critics, he seemed determined to frighten his public. There is nothing unwholesome or suggestive about the "Lysistrata" designs: they are as as frank, free, and outspoken as the text. For the countrymen of Chaucer to simulate indignation about them can only be explained "because things seen are greater than things heard." Yet, when an artist frankly deals with forbidden subjects, the old canons regular of English art begin to thunder, the critics forget their French accent; the old Robert Adam, which is in all of us, asserts himself; we fly for the fig-leaves. A real artist, Beardsley has not burdened himself with chronology or archæology. Conceived somewhat in the spirit of the eighteenth century, the period of graceful indecency, there is here, however, an Olympian air, a statuesque beauty, only comparable to the antique vases. The illusion is enhanced by the absence of all background, and this gives an added touch of severity to the compositions.