
Meet Franz von Bayros, the man behind some of the most imaginative and gorgeous erotic art of the 20th Century
For anyone who's ever been naiive enough to think for a minute that conteporary culture has a monopoly on erotic art, get into Franz von Bayros.
(Public domain illustrations from his scandalous "Tales at the Dressing Table" series illuminate this page.)
Bayros was one of several artists and writers who rose to fame out of the Decadent movement, a late 19th century artistic and literary movement that basically spurned and mocked industrialized society and instead celebrated self-indulgence, drugs (hello, opium and absinthe!), perversion, crude humor, and sensuality.
Superstars of the Decadent movement, many of which were said to have been influenced by 18thcentury writer the Marquis de Sade, included authors Charles Baudelaire, Joris-Karl Huysmans, Arthur Rimbaud, Oscar Wilde and artists Félicien Rops, Aubrey Beardsley, and our FKIN (A)rt Friday man, Franz von Bayros.