Pure Evil - Les Fleurs Du Mal

164 x 144 cm

Ink on Canvas 

Produced in 2005

Comes in a Black frame.

An update of Felicien Rops' engraving for the frontispiece of Les Épaves, a collection of incidental verse by Baudelaire which would include the six censored poems from the 1857 edition of Les Fleurs du mal. Les Épaves was finally published in 1866 with the Rops frontispiece illustrating the complex iconographic programme elaborated by Baudelaire. It depicts a skeleton, symbolising the tree of good and evil, in whose feet grow flowers representing the seven deadly sins. Angels and cherubs are flying high above around a medallion of the poet carried away by a chimera.

In the pure evil version there is a medallion at the bottom of the picture depicting a dodo with the latin phrase 'NON GRATUM ANUS RODENTUM' meaning 'NOT WORTH A RATS ARSE'