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Description
"To love oneself is a beginning of a lifelong romance..."

More from the GMD Weekly Deviations: By request, Basilians have demanded more Oscar Milde and this is perhaps my favourite piece I ever did of Oscar. There really isn't much to say about this piece. It's taken directly — the pose, the clothes, the hat, etc. — from a promotional photo from the British award-winning 1978 miniseries, Lillie, with Peter Egan as Oscar Wilde who is the main secondary model for this characters. The costume s based heavily on the photographs by Napoleon Sarony when the real-life Wilde went on a year-long lecture tour in America in 1881 to cash on the success of Gilbert and Sullivan's operetta Patience, which satirised aesthetes as silly, lazy effeminates wearing knee-breeches while posing with sunflowers and lilies. To the surprise of the Americans when he stepped off the boat in New York, Oscar Milde (and Wilde) were a six-foot-four-inch giant heart-throb of masculinity with long hair, dressed in a fur coat and a floppy hat, with a wicked sense of humour, and an ego larger than the New York City itself, saying that "I have nothing to declare but me genius!" Oh, those silly Americans!

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How old is Basil? The same age as Sherlock Holmes, of course. Much like Queen Moustoria's the same age as Queen Victoria. Starting with the Sacred Writings, two references help calculate how old Sherlock Holmes is. In Boscombe Valley Mystery, he said he was "middle-aged" in 1889 and in His Last Bow is more specific as Holmes said he was "sixty" in 1914. Simple arithmetic dates his birthdate circa 1854. Ironically, Oscar Wilde was also born in 1854.

Why does Basil attend Oxford University? It's because I believe Sherlock Holmes attended Oxford as well. In Gloria Scott, we get glimpses pf Holmes' university days, it it never specifically said which university, but we do know that he became friends with Victor Trevor, Jr, the son of a Justice of the Peace and, in Musgrave Ritual, we meet another friend of Holmes' university days, the young Sir Reginald Musgrave, a son of a Member of Parliament and heir to one of the oldest noble families in England. With an upper-class gentleman and an aristocrat and Holmes himself a descendant of country squires, logically Holmes went to one of the OLD universities — Oxford or Cambridge? Evidence points mostly to Oxford. In Gloria Scott, he talks about going "down to chapel" and the "quadrangle" which are all Oxford terms. In Three Students, Holmes went to a famous university town of Cambridge and didn't know his way around the university grounds at all. Also, Holmes seems to have been influenced by the Aesthetic Movement greatly, which explains why he became a detective, which isn't the traditional career move. Aesthetic Movement had originated in Oxford, which Oscar Wilde was one of the most famous disciples on both sides of the Atlantic. In fact, Holmes quotes their famous motto of the aesthetes, "art for art's sake" twice — once Red Circle and another at Retired Colourman. And since both Holmes and Wilde were born in 1854, went to Oxford, and were both celebrities in their respectful colleges, making Basil and Milde friends was a creative licensing.

How did you create Oscar Milde? Originally, I created Oscar Milde out of anger and fury. The film Wilde had been released in theatres, which annoyed me, not because the film was bad, but because the film was just another stupid vehicle on the Wilde's scandals. Even to someone who has never read Oscar Wilde, they know his name because of his sex scandals. Most biographies on Wilde concentrate primarily on the scandals, or more often than not the entire piece is completely dedicated to them. Every bio-film of Wilde (with the due exception of Lillie, which is why I enjoyed it and used as a primary reference, with Peter Egan playing Oscar) are all about the scandals. It's nothing but goddamn tabloids — and this infuriated me because it's only a small fraction of his life and many of them don't support their information with references, first-hand sources, etc. I wanted to know about Oscar the Poet, Oscar the Wit, Oscar the Family Man, Oscar the Friend, ....Oscar the Man! So, out of retaliation, Oscar Milde is a tribute to Oscar Wilde as an individual personality and thought it would be interesting to have him part of the cast. The real-life Wilde was friends with professional beauty Lillie Langtry and actress Sarah Bernhardt, whom were the main models Sir Arthur Conan Doyle used for Irene Adler, and ever courted them. Also, Doyle and Wilde were causal friends; they shared the same publishing agent at one point and had lunch or two together. (Unfortunately, like many others, Doyle completely disassociated himself from Wilde after news of his scandals broke out.)

Milde and Basil becoming best friends happened naturally and, like the real-life counterpart, knew ever scandal and gossip about everyone in high society. Also, Dawson doesn't become Basil's "Boswell" until the events of the film, which is 1897. Someone has to write down Basil's adventures before then! That someone had Oscar...in his very flowery, romantic prose, much to Basil's chagrin, hahahaha! Another aspect is that I wanted to show Oscar Milde as a character that the audience would love, making his spiraling downfall all the more tragic...

(These descriptions and replying to messages are now three times harder to do with a broken arm, so please be patient with me. Thank you.)

Inspiration - Oscar Wilde (Historical) | Models - Peter Egan , Stephen Fry

Medium - Col-erase red.

Oscar Milde © Diane N. Tran.

Description
"To love oneself is a beginning of a lifelong romance..."

More from the GMD Weekly Deviations: By request, Basilians have demanded more Oscar Milde and this is perhaps my favourite piece I ever did of Oscar. There really isn't much to say about this piece. It's taken directly — the pose, the clothes, the hat, etc. — from a promotional photo from the British award-winning 1978 miniseries, Lillie, with Peter Egan as Oscar Wilde who is the main secondary model for this characters. The costume s based heavily on the photographs by Napoleon Sarony when the real-life Wilde went on a year-long lecture tour in America in 1881 to cash on the success of Gilbert and Sullivan's operetta Patience, which satirised aesthetes as silly, lazy effeminates wearing knee-breeches while posing with sunflowers and lilies. To the surprise of the Americans when he stepped off the boat in New York, Oscar Milde (and Wilde) were a six-foot-four-inch giant heart-throb of masculinity with long hair, dressed in a fur coat and a floppy hat, with a wicked sense of humour, and an ego larger than the New York City itself, saying that "I have nothing to declare but me genius!" Oh, those silly Americans!

-----

How old is Basil? The same age as Sherlock Holmes, of course. Much like Queen Moustoria's the same age as Queen Victoria. Starting with the Sacred Writings, two references help calculate how old Sherlock Holmes is. In Boscombe Valley Mystery, he said he was "middle-aged" in 1889 and in His Last Bow is more specific as Holmes said he was "sixty" in 1914. Simple arithmetic dates his birthdate circa 1854. Ironically, Oscar Wilde was also born in 1854.

Why does Basil attend Oxford University? It's because I believe Sherlock Holmes attended Oxford as well. In Gloria Scott, we get glimpses pf Holmes' university days, it it never specifically said which university, but we do know that he became friends with Victor Trevor, Jr, the son of a Justice of the Peace and, in Musgrave Ritual, we meet another friend of Holmes' university days, the young Sir Reginald Musgrave, a son of a Member of Parliament and heir to one of the oldest noble families in England. With an upper-class gentleman and an aristocrat and Holmes himself a descendant of country squires, logically Holmes went to one of the OLD universities — Oxford or Cambridge? Evidence points mostly to Oxford. In Gloria Scott, he talks about going "down to chapel" and the "quadrangle" which are all Oxford terms. In Three Students, Holmes went to a famous university town of Cambridge and didn't know his way around the university grounds at all. Also, Holmes seems to have been influenced by the Aesthetic Movement greatly, which explains why he became a detective, which isn't the traditional career move. Aesthetic Movement had originated in Oxford, which Oscar Wilde was one of the most famous disciples on both sides of the Atlantic. In fact, Holmes quotes their famous motto of the aesthetes, "art for art's sake" twice — once Red Circle and another at Retired Colourman. And since both Holmes and Wilde were born in 1854, went to Oxford, and were both celebrities in their respectful colleges, making Basil and Milde friends was a creative licensing.

How did you create Oscar Milde? Originally, I created Oscar Milde out of anger and fury. The film Wilde had been released in theatres, which annoyed me, not because the film was bad, but because the film was just another stupid vehicle on the Wilde's scandals. Even to someone who has never read Oscar Wilde, they know his name because of his sex scandals. Most biographies on Wilde concentrate primarily on the scandals, or more often than not the entire piece is completely dedicated to them. Every bio-film of Wilde (with the due exception of Lillie, which is why I enjoyed it and used as a primary reference, with Peter Egan playing Oscar) are all about the scandals. It's nothing but goddamn tabloids — and this infuriated me because it's only a small fraction of his life and many of them don't support their information with references, first-hand sources, etc. I wanted to know about Oscar the Poet, Oscar the Wit, Oscar the Family Man, Oscar the Friend, ....Oscar the Man! So, out of retaliation, Oscar Milde is a tribute to Oscar Wilde as an individual personality and thought it would be interesting to have him part of the cast. The real-life Wilde was friends with professional beauty Lillie Langtry and actress Sarah Bernhardt, whom were the main models Sir Arthur Conan Doyle used for Irene Adler, and ever courted them. Also, Doyle and Wilde were causal friends; they shared the same publishing agent at one point and had lunch or two together. (Unfortunately, like many others, Doyle completely disassociated himself from Wilde after news of his scandals broke out.)

Milde and Basil becoming best friends happened naturally and, like the real-life counterpart, knew ever scandal and gossip about everyone in high society. Also, Dawson doesn't become Basil's "Boswell" until the events of the film, which is 1897. Someone has to write down Basil's adventures before then! That someone had Oscar...in his very flowery, romantic prose, much to Basil's chagrin, hahahaha! Another aspect is that I wanted to show Oscar Milde as a character that the audience would love, making his spiraling downfall all the more tragic...

(These descriptions and replying to messages are now three times harder to do with a broken arm, so please be patient with me. Thank you.)

Inspiration - Oscar Wilde (Historical) | Models - Peter Egan , Stephen Fry

Medium - Col-erase red.

Oscar Milde © Diane N. Tran.