I decided a few weeks ago that I should make a little decoration for a book that I am compiling on the ethnobotany of the asclepiads. The book will just be a listing of all known human uses for the Asclepiadoideae that I can find before I get bored of it. It will only exist in the virtual realm and be available for free, it will not get printed.
Who is the best artist to pastiche when designing something for a book? Aubrey Beardsley, of course.
The front cover of Le Morte Darthur had a design of some flowers unknown in the real world.
The front cover of Le Mort Darthur by Thomas Malory, published in 1893.
Prepared from William Caxton's original print of 1485 by Ernest Rhys.
A limited edition of 300 on Dutch Hand Made paper and 1500 ordinary.
It was "embellished with many original designs by Aubrey Beardsley".
Found on the Internet Archive.
As the reader can see from the original here, I have changed it substantially. I added a different centre to the flower to make it look like one of the asclepiads and added the leaves in pairs, as those plants usually have opposite leaves. I also tried to make the petals more uniform. I made mine more obviously a climbing plant, as I always thought Beardsley's plant must be an outlandish tropical liana or some fabulous vine from a forest in Elfland.
It is still clearly an imaginary plant but a botanist might place it in the Marsdeniae or Gonolobinae tribes.
I made a couple of variations, one with the clutter removed from the sides and a further one with the leaves removed from the bottom edge. I think I prefer the one I put at the top of the page. It has some of the claustrophobic sinister quality shared by much of Beardsley's work, despite the cheery blue background that is supposed to be the sky.
Even an imaginary plant should have a name. Perhaps the common name would be Beardsley's oddvine. Mortdarthurea praetexta is the botanical name that I coined. In Latin praetexta can mean "place before or in front", so it could refer to the flower coming from the front cover of the book. Another meaning for praetexta is the purple border of the toga praetexta worn by magistrates and free-born children, so it could refer to the purple-bordered flowers. It can also simply mean "an ornament" or "a pretence". Though I say so myself, I think this pretend thing that I made is rather ornamental.
To produce these designs I used the free, open source image editor called the GNU Image Manipulation Programme or GIMP. It has more capabilities than I need or understand.
Wallpaper
