Aubrey Beardsley

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Aubrey Beardsley
Portrait of Beardsley by Frederick Hollyer, 1893
Born
Aubrey Vincent Beardsley

(1872-08-21)21 August 1872
Brighton, Sussex, England
Died16 March 1898(1898-03-16) (aged 25)
Menton, France
Resting placeCimetière du Vieux-Château, Menton, France[1]
EducationWestminster School of Art
Known forIllustration, graphics/graphic arts
MovementArt Nouveau, aestheticism

Aubrey Vincent Beardsley (

poster styles was significant despite his early death from tuberculosis. He is one of the important Modern Style
figures.

Early life, education, and early career

Aubrey Beardsley by Jacques-Émile Blanche, oil on canvas, 1895 (National Portrait Gallery, London)

Beardsley was born in Brighton,

breach of promise of marriage from another woman, the widow of a clergyman,[8] who claimed that he had promised to marry her.[9] At the time of his birth, Beardsley's family, which included his sister Mabel who was one year older, were living in Ellen's familial home at 12 Buckingham Road.[10][8] At the age of seven, Beardsley contracted tuberculosis.[11]

With the loss of Vincent Beardsley's fortune soon after his son's birth, the family settled in London in 1883, where Vincent would work first for the West India & Panama Telegraph Company, then irregularly as a clerk at breweries;

Fred Brown.[16][15]

Work

Beardsley traveled to Paris in 1892, where he discovered the poster art of Henri de Toulouse-Lautrec and the Parisian fashion for Japanese prints. His first commission was Le Morte d'Arthur by Thomas Malory (1893), illustrated for the publishing house J.M. Dent and Company.[17] In 1894, a new translation of Lucian’s True History, with illustrations by Beardsley, William Strang, and J. B. Clark, was privately printed in an edition of 251 copies.[18]

Beardsley had six years of creative output, which can be divided into several periods, identified by the form of his signature. In the early period, his work is mostly unsigned. During 1891 and 1892, he progressed to using his initials A.V.B. In mid-1892, the period of Le Morte d'Arthur and The Bon Mots, he used a Japanese-influenced mark that became progressively more graceful, sometimes accompanied by A.B. in block capitals.[19]

The Peacock Skirt, 1893

He co-founded The Yellow Book with American writer Henry Harland, and for the first four editions, he served as art editor and produced the cover designs and many illustrations for the magazine. He was aligned with Aestheticism, the British counterpart of Decadence and Symbolism. Most of his images are done in ink and feature large dark areas contrasted with large blank ones as well as areas of fine detail contrasted with areas with none at all.

The Barge, illustration to The Rape of the Lock by Alexander Pope, 1896

Beardsley was the most controversial artist of the Art Nouveau era, renowned for his dark and perverse images and grotesque erotica, which were the main themes of his later work. He satirized Victorian values regarding sex, that at the time highly valued respectability, and men's fear of female superiority, as the women's movement made gains in economic rights and occupational and educational opportunities by the 1880s.[20][21]

His illustrations were in black and white against a white background. Some of his drawings, inspired by Japanese

shunga artwork, featured enormous genitalia. His most famous erotic illustrations concerned themes of history and mythology; these include his illustrations for a privately printed edition of Aristophanes' Lysistrata and his drawings for Oscar Wilde's play Salome, which eventually premiered in Paris in 1896. Other major illustration projects included an 1896 edition of The Rape of the Lock by Alexander Pope.[17]

The Black Cat, 1894–5

He also produced extensive illustrations for books and magazines (e.g., for a deluxe edition of Sir Thomas Malory's Le Morte d'Arthur) and worked for magazines such as The Studio and The Savoy, of which he was a co-founder. As a co-founder of The Savoy, Beardsley was able to pursue his writing as well as illustration, and a number of his writings, including Under the Hill (a story based on the Tannhäuser legend) and "The Ballad of a Barber" appeared in the magazine.[22]

Beardsley was a

Poster Art Movement of the 1890s and the work of many later-period Art Nouveau artists such as Papé and Clarke. Some alleged works of Beardsley's were published in a book titled Fifty Drawings by Aubrey Beardsley, Selected from the Collection of Mr. H.S. Nicols. These later were discovered to be forgeries, distinguishable by their almost pornographic erotic elements rather than Beardsley's subtler use of sexuality.[23]

Beardsley's work continued to cause controversy in Britain long after his death. During an exhibition of Beardsley's prints held at the Victoria and Albert Museum in London in 1966, a private gallery in London was raided by the police for exhibiting copies of the same prints on display at the museum, and the owner charged under obscenity laws.[24]

Private life

Aubrey Beardsley, c. 1894–1895

Beardsley was a public as well as private eccentric. He said "I have one aim—the grotesque. If I am not grotesque, I am nothing." Wilde said Beardsley had "a face like a silver hatchet, and grass green hair."

court shoes.[26]

Although Beardsley was associated with the homosexual clique that included Oscar Wilde and other aesthetes, the details of his sexuality remain in question. In his Autobiographies, W.B. Yeats, who knew him well, says that he was not homosexual. Speculation about his sexuality includes rumours of an incestuous relationship with his elder sister, Mabel, who may have become pregnant by her brother and miscarried.[27][28]

During his entire career, Beardsley had recurrent attacks of tuberculosis. He suffered frequent lung haemorrhage and often was unable to work or leave his home.

Beardsley converted to Catholicism in March 1897. The next year, the last letter before his death was to his publisher Leonard Smithers and close friend Herbert Charles Pollitt:

Postmark: March 7, 1898 | Jesus is our Lord and Judge | Dear Friend, I implore you to destroy all copies of Lysistrata and bad drawings … By all that is holy, all obscene drawings. | Aubrey Beardsley | In my death agony.[29]

Both men ignored Beardsley's wishes,[30][31] and Smithers actually continued to sell reproductions as well as forgeries of Beardsley's work.[19]

Death

In December 1896, Beardsley suffered a violent haemorrhage, leaving him in precarious health. By April 1897, a month after his conversion to Catholicism, his deteriorating health prompted a move to the French Riviera. There he died a year later, on 16 March 1898, of tuberculosis at the Cosmopolitan Hotel in Menton,

requiem mass in Menton Cathedral the following day, his remains were interred in the Cimetière du Trabuquet.[32][33]

Media portrayals

In the 1982 Playhouse drama Aubrey, written by

Sgt. Pepper's Lonely Hearts Club Band. The 1977 horror film Death Bed: The Bed That Eats is narrated by the entombed spirit of an unnamed artist whose work and manner of death identify him as Beardsley.[36]

In March 2020, BBC Four broadcast the hour-long documentary Scandal & Beauty: Mark Gatiss on Aubrey Beardsley, presented by Mark Gatiss. The programme coincided with the Beardsley exhibition at Tate Britain.[37]

Beardsley's art is mentioned briefly in the 2011 version of the Car Seat Headrest song, Beach Life-in-Death.[38]

Legacy

In 2019 the National Leather Association International established an award named after Beardsley for creators of abstract erotic art.[39]

Gallery

Works

  • Beardsley, Aubrey, Simon Wilson, and Linda Gertner Zatlin. 1998. Aubrey Beardsley: a centenary tribute. Tokyo: Art Life Ltd.
    OCLC 42742305

See also

Citations

  1. ISBN 978-2-7491-2169-7
  2. ^ "England, Births and Christenings, 1538–1975," index, FamilySearch, accessed 4 April 2012), Aubrey Vincent Beardsley (1872).
  3. ^ Brophy 1968, p. 85
  4. ^ a b "Beardsley, Aubrey, Artist, Part 1 – The Formative Years". Epsom & Ewell History Explorer.
  5. ^ Brophy, Brigid (1976). Beardsley and His World, Harmony Books, p. 12.
  6. ^ Aubrey Beardsley: Exhibition at the Victoria and Albert Museum, 1966 [20 May – 18 September] Catalogue of the Original Drawings, Letters, Manuscripts, Paintings, and of Books, Posters, Photographs, Documents, Etc, H.M. Stationery Office, 1966
  7. ^ Sturgis 1998, p. 8
  8. ^ a b Sturgis 1998, p. 3
  9. ^ Sturgis 1998, p. 10
  10. ^ The house numbers in Buckingham Road were later changed, and the old 12 is now 31.
  11. ^ Farren, Jen; McCain, Sandy. "Aubrey Beardsley Art, Bio, Ideas". The Art Story. Retrieved 26 July 2022.
  12. ^ Sturgis 1998, p. 11
  13. doi:10.1093/ref:odnb/1821. (Subscription or UK public library membership
    required.)
  14. ^ Sturgis 1998, p. 15
  15. ^ a b  One or more of the preceding sentences incorporates text from a publication now in the public domain: Chisholm, Hugh, ed. (1911). "Beardsley, Aubrey Vincent". Encyclopædia Britannica. Vol. 3 (11th ed.). Cambridge University Press. pp. 577–578.
  16. ^ Armstrong 1901.
  17. ^
    ISBN 978-1-84573-473-2
    .
  18. ^ “Beardsley (Aubrey Vincent)” in T. Bose, Paul Tiessen, eds., Bookman's Catalogue Vol. 1 A-L: The Norman Colbeck Collection (UBC Press, 1987), p. 41
  19. ^ a b Harris, Bruce S., ed. (1967). The Collected Drawings of Aubrey Beardsley. Crown Publishers, Inc.
  20. ^ Eric Smith (1992). "The Art of Aubrey Beardsley". Loyola University. Archived from the original on 25 November 2017. Retrieved 24 October 2015.
  21. ^ "A Mirror for Salome: Beardsley's The Climax". Victorian Web. 22 April 2009. Retrieved 24 October 2015.
  22. ^ "The Life of Aubrey Beardsley" (PDF). Victorian Web. Retrieved 8 May 2012.
  23. ^ Symons, Aurthus (1967). The Collected Drawings of Aubrey Beardsley. New York: Crescent Books Inc. pp. v.
  24. ^ Elizabeth Guffey, Retro: The Culture of Revival (London: Reaktion Books, 2006) p.7
  25. ISBN 9780230600232
  26. ^ Weintraub, Stanley (1976). Aubrey Beardsley, Imp of the Perverse. Pennsylvania State University Press. p. 85.
  27. ^ Beardsley and the art of decadence by Matthew Sturgis", reviewed by Richard Edmonds in The Birmingham Post (England), 21 March 1998. At thefreelibrary.com, retrieved 5 April 2012.
  28. ISBN 978-0-8020-3662-9
    .
  29. ISBN 978-0-8386-6884-9
    .
  30. ISBN 978-0-8020-3662-9
    .
  31. ISBN 978-1-58394-576-6
    .
  32. ^ Sturgis 1998[page needed]
  33. doi:10.1093/ref:odnb/1821
    .
  34. ^ Gilbert, John Selwyn (22 June 2008), Aubrey
  35. ^ "BBC – Beardsley and his Work". BBC. Retrieved 28 November 2018.
  36. ^ DEATH BED - The Bedlam Files
  37. ^ Scandal & Beauty: Mark Gatiss on Aubrey Beardsely - BBC Four website
  38. ^ Car Seat Headrest – Beach Life-in-Death [2011], retrieved 4 September 2022
  39. ^ NLA-I. Web. "Award Nominations - NLA International". www.nla-international.com.

General sources

External links

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