Aleister Crowley and the Oscar Wilde Tomb

ALEISTER CROWLEY

AND THE 

OSCAR WILDE TOMB

'And alien tears will fall for him,

Pity's long-broken urn,

For his mourners will be outcast men,

And outcasts always mourn.'

[inscription carved by Joseph Cribb (1892-1967), 

assistant to sculptor Eric Gill]

one of the many splendid avenues in Pere Lachaise cemetery

a beautiful necropolis

with rather ornate statues and carving

The Oscar Wilde Tomb at Division 89

the tomb is made of Hopton Wood Stone which is a type of limestone quarried in Derbyshire, England. Robert Ross, Wilde's literary executor was a close friend of the English sculptor Jacob Epstein (1880-1959) and a commission was placed upon Epstein to create a suitable memorial for Wilde. The plinth is by the English architect, Charles Henry Holden (1875-1960)

Epstein designed a sphynx-like winged figure or messenger. The young male figure is vibrant in flight and it took Epstein around ten months to create the sculpture and it was transported to Paris in 1912

the genitalia created quite a stir and was covered up by a bronze 'butterfly' by the authorities. The figure was vandalised in 1961 and the testicals were removed!

the glass barrier was erected in 2001 to prevent damage from lipstick on the stone

a side view of the monument

The monument was unveiled by the English occultist Aleister Crowley on Wednesday 5th November 1913. Here is what he has to say in his 'Confessions':

'At this time the consciences of men were exercised, as our fathers put it, with regard to the monument which Jacob Epstein had made for the tomb of Oscar Wilde in Pere-Lachaise. This monument had been on exhibition in his studio in London for some months and the most delicately minded dilettanti had detected nothing objectionable in it. No sooner had it been put in the cemetery than the guardian objected to it as indecent. The Prefect of the Seine upheld him. I went to see it. I did not greatly admire it; I thought the general design lumpish and top-heavy, but the modelling of the winged sphinx, or whatever it was, seemed admirably simple and subtle. The aesthetic point was, however, not at stake. The attitude of the authorities was an insult and outrage to the freedom of art. The entire innocence of the statue made their action less defensible, though personally I do not believe in any restrictions based on prejudice. Great art is always outspoken and its effects on people depends on their minds alone. We have now discovered, in fact, that the most harmless phenomena of dreams really represent the most indecent and abominable ideas. If we choose to find an objectionable meaning in Alice in Wonderland, or determine to persuade ourselves that the frank oriental obscenities of the Bible are indecent, no one can stop us. Mankind can only rise above his lower self by facing the facts and mastering his instincts.' (Confessions. Chapter 67. p. 644)

the rear of the monument

Crowley goes on to say that:

'I was indignant at the insult to Epstein and to art in his person. I therefore resolved to make a gesture on behalf of the prerogatives of creative genius. I printed a manifesto:

AU NOM DE LA LIBERTE DE L'ART

L'Artists a le droit de creer ce qu'il vent!

Le beau monument d'Oscar Wilde au Pere-Lachaise, chef d'oeuvre du sculpteur Jacob Epstein, quoique deja mutile et degrade par ordre du Prefect de la Seine, reste toujours voile. A midi, Mercredi prochain le 5 novembre, M. Aleister Crowley, le poete Irlandais, va le devoiler. Venez lui preter votre sympathie et votre aide, venez protester contre la tyrannie pudibonde et pornophile des bourgeois, venez affirmer le droit de l'Artiste de creer ce qu'il veut. rendez-vous, Cimetiere de pere-Lachaise, aupres du monument d'Oscar Wilde, a midi, Mercredi, 5 Novembre.

I had this distributed widely through Paris. My friend and landlord, M. Bourcier, shook his head very sadly. they would send soldiers, he said, "with cannon and bayonet" to form a cordon round the monument and prevent me from removing the tarpaulin. Oh, will they? said I. So I opened my mind to an enthusiastic young American, who agreed to help me. We bought a coil of extremely fine and strong steel wire, which would be practically invisible in the dull November gloom. We waited till the gates were closed and then proceeded to attach the wire to the tarpaulin, so that from the shelter of a tree a couple of hundred yards away, a gentle pull would suffice to bring it away, I having cut through the cords which kept it in place in such a way that they held only by a fibre, apparently uninjured. I was to make no attempt to rush the military forces of the Republic, but make a speech on the outskirts. When I threw up my arm to apostrophize the empyrean, he was to pull the wires from his lurking place. these arrangements completed, we got out by explaining to the gatekeeper that we had lost our way.' (p. 644-645)

detail showing the sculpture's foot

'The next day at the appointed hour, I went to the cemetery with one or two desperate adherents. A distinguished concourse of enthusiasts was awaiting the Darling of Destiny, the Warden of the Worthiness of Wilde, the Emancipator of the Ebullition of Epstein. We marched in solemn procession to the tomb. I was amused to observe that the patrols, immediately they saw us, scuttled away like rabbits. I suppose at first that they had gone to give warning, and expected to be arrested before the conclusion of the entertainment, but when we got to the tomb I found no serried ranks of soldiers shouting, "Il ne passeront pas!" There was not a soul in sight!

I then understood that orders had been given on no account to interfere with the mad Irish poet. It rather took the wind out of my sails. I made my speech and unveiled Epstein's effort in the dull drizzling weather. It was a disheartening success. The affair, however, made a great noise in the newspapers, both in France and in England, and the funniest thing about it was that Epstein himself, the one person above all others who should have been gratified, one would have supposed, took my action in rather bad part.' (p. 645-646)

adopting a French attitude and 

walking in Crowley's footsteps

'The Oscar Wilde monument was fated to furnish further amusement. With unparalleled insolence, the authorities decided to mutilate Epstein's work. They employed a sculptor, who must, by the way, have been utterly lost to all sense of shame, to fix a bronze butterfly over the "objectionable" feature of the monument. This feature had been quite unnoticeable to any but the most prurient observer. The butterfly, being of different material and workmanship, clamoured for attention to exactly that which it was intended to make people forget.

This incidentally is a characteristic of puritan psychology. Nobody would notice that side of nature to which those folk whose goodness resents that of God, attach a "bad" meaning, if they did not persistently emphasize its existence. The bad taste of this outrage went even further. The butterfly was notoriously the emblem of Whistler, whose controversies with Wilde were so savagely witty. To put this on the very symbol of Wilde's creative genius was the most obscene insult which could have been imagined. Martial never composed an epigram so indecently mocking.

I did not know that this outrage had been perpetrated. I had gone to the cemetery simply to see if the tarpaulin had been replaced. I confess that I fully enjoyed the flavour of this foul jest. It was all the more pungent because unintentional. (The idea had been simply to make a quiet, inconspicuous modification. It is really strange how polite propriety is always stumbling into Rabelaisian jests. I remember, for instance, writing in some article for the New York Vanity Fair, "Science offers her virgin head to the caress of Magick." The editor thought the word "virgin" a little risky and changed it to "maiden"!

Recovering from the first spasm of cynical appreciation, I saw that there was only one thing to be done in the interests of common decency and respect for Epstein. I detached the butterfly and put it under my waistcoat. The gate keeper did not notice how portly I had become. When I reached London, I put on evening dress and affixed the butterfly to my own person in the same way as previously to the statue, in the interests of modesty, and then marched into the Cafe Royal, to the delight of the assembled multitude. Epstein himself happened to be there and it was a glorious evening. By this time he had understood my motives; that I was honestly indignant at the outrage to him and determined to uphold the privileges of the artist.' (p. 647-648)