| AUBREY VINCENT BEARDSLEY (1872-1898) | |||
A brilliant black and white illustrator who died at a young age – an
English Art Nouveau icon. At the age of seven Beardsley was diagnosed with
tuberculoses, which many see as a possible explanation for his unbridled
urge to express himself. Without any education in arts he developed his
passionate style of drawing, averse to the social and political
equalization, and not being socially engaged as many of his contemporaries.
Beardsley admired the pre-Raphaelites’ traditional, distant style and the
thought provoking two-dimensional Japanese art of drawing, which
subsequently had a sexual lack of inhibition which was unthinkable in
prudish Victorian England. Along the lines of the Fin-de-Siècle he
cultivated ugliness to a ruthless aestheticism of decadence, like
Beaudelaire did in his Fleurs du Mal. In his own words: “I struck out a
new style and method of work which was founded on Japanese art but quite
original. It is extremely fantastic in conception but perfectly severe in
execution”. The Studio magazine published his drawings which earned him
some recognition, but certainly yielded no wide recognition. It did give
him the opportunity to resign from his job at the office and devote
himself entirely to the art of drawing. He got assignments for book
illustrations and got involved with the successful artistic literary
magazine The Yellow Book. In 1896 he and formal solicitor Smithers founded
the magazine The Savoy. Two years later he died of tuberculoses.
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The Black Cape, 1894 (Illustration with the text of the play Salome by Oscar Wilde. The play Salome which Oscar Wilde wrote for Sarah Bernhardt formed the source of inspiration for Beardsley’s famous drawing of Salome who kisses John the Baptist’s decapitated head. Wilde was impressed with Beardsley’s work and asked him to make ten illustrations for the English publication of the play. Beardsley started working on the assignment after a trip to France, where he was imposed by symbolists like Moreau en Redon. The drawings as such rendered a lot of admiration, but their wittiness and elegance seem to undermine the high pretences of the play. They were criticized because neither the style nor the symbolism depicted the text. Wilde also thought them to be too Japanese for his Byzantium play which definitely was the case with The Black Cape. The mutual affection between both artists remained however unaffected. |
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