Summary/Reviews: Aubrey Beardsley : Staff View SUMMARY Like Oscar Wilde, Beardsley was a leading member of the Decadent movement in England during the 1890s. Together they shocked the press and the establishment by cultivating the pose of dandies, coolly removed from prevailing social mores, and took aim at the dominant figures of the late 19th-century art world: moralizing critic John Ruskin and the sentimental pre-Raphaelite painters. That Beardsley met an early death at the age of 25 after a lifelong battle with tuberculosis was especially ironic, as the cult of the doomed youth was central to the Decadent movement. Throughout, Sturgis is in full command of the cultural conditions that led to Beardsley's emergence as an enfant terrible, such as the newly available illustrated picture press that made the artist's deliberately shocking drawings easily available to the masses and turned him into a media-art star avant la lettre.

Sturgis never resorts to flimsy psychological conjecture (although his circumspection may in part be due to Beardsley's own efforts to fashion an elaborate mask for public consumption), and the biographer's prose is unexpectedly affecting when the end comes for his subject, as Beardsley rushes from spa to sanitarium, searching for a cure, frantically taking up and abandoning projects all the while. Arriving as it does in the midst of our own surface-obsessed fin de siecle, Sturgis's biography is not only a faithful record of Beardsley and of his world but also a useful study of the birth pangs of modernity. 26 b&w photographs and Beardsley's line drawings throughout. Review by Choice Review Over the past year a number of books have appeared on Beardsley, the witty and provocative illustrator whose ink drawings have come to epitomize the 1890s in Britain. Freelance writer and critic Sturgis weighs in with this elegant and authoritative life, conspicuous as much for its biographic detail as for its analysis of the distinctive bite of Beardsley's art.

Sturgis, author of Passionate Attitudes: The English Decadence of the Eighteen Nineties (1995), is an excellent guide to the nuances of the fin de si`ecle world of which Beardsley was such a conspicuous figure. The text is interspersed with black-and-white illustrations and includes a short bibliographic essay. The extensive endnotes gives it an important advantage over Stephen Calloway's recent Aubrey Beardsley (CH, Jun'98), which offers only a select bibliography. Yet Calloway provides an equally compelling narrative accompanied by a wealth of illustrations (many of which are in color)--an essential ingredient for a full appreciation of Beardsley's art. Calloway, therefore, remains a first choice, but libraries choosing Sturgis will have few regrets. General readers; undergraduates through faculty. W. S. Rodner; Tidewater Community College Copyright American Library Association, used with permission. Review by Booklist Review The nineteenth century is bracketed by the careers of two great English artists cut down prematurely by tuberculosis--John Keats (1795^-1821) and Aubrey Beardsley (1872^-98).

The poet is memorialized in Andrew Motion's superb Keats (1998). Now Sturgis thoroughly recounts the draftsman-illustrator's life in a book more tightly focused than Motion's because Beardsley is better documented than Keats and because Beardsley was not as politically involved as Keats. Sturgis highlights Beardsley's engagement with the two principle artistic currents of his time and place, Pre-Raphaelitism and the art-for-art's-sake aesthetics of Whistler, which together accounted for the poses, attitudes, and decorative backdrops--or lack of them--in Beardsley's drawings. Beardsley grew up in no greater security than had Keats, and he was even more sickly, but he found greater success in his lifetime, despite an association with Oscar Wilde, which he repudiated. Subsequent fashion art is almost unthinkable without the example of the androgynous, aloofly sexy figures in Beardsley's work, and the disease-constricted life out of which they were produced is the stuff of romantic legend. --Ray Olson From Booklist, Copyright (c) American Library Association. Used with permission.

Review by Publisher's Weekly Review In this informative life of Beardsley, the great turn-of-the-century illustrator, limner of impossibly elongated, imperious femmes fatales and fey androgynes, Sturgis captures both his precocious subject's rise to infamy and the cultural changes that made it possible. Like Oscar Wilde, Beardsley was a leading member of the Decadent movement in England during the 1890s. Together they shocked the press and the establishment by cultivating the pose of dandies, coolly removed from prevailing social mores, and took aim at the dominant figures of the late 19th-century art world: moralizing critic John Ruskin and the sentimental pre-Raphaelite painters. That Beardsley met an early death at the age of 25 after a lifelong battle with tuberculosis was especially ironic, as the cult of the doomed youth was central to the Decadent movement. Throughout, Sturgis is in full command of the cultural conditions that led to Beardsley's emergence as an enfant terrible, such as the newly available illustrated picture press that made the artist's deliberately shocking drawings easily available to the masses and turned him into a media-art star avant la lettre.

Sturgis never resorts to flimsy psychological conjecture (although his circumspection may in part be due to Beardsley's own efforts to fashion an elaborate mask for public consumption), and the biographer's prose is unexpectedly affecting when the end comes for his subject, as Beardsley rushes from spa to sanitarium, searching for a cure, frantically taking up and abandoning projects all the while. Arriving as it does in the midst of our own surface-obsessed fin de siècle, Sturgis's solid biography is not only a faithful record of Beardsley and of his world but also a useful study of the birth pangs of modernity. 26 b&w photographs and Beardsley's line drawings throughout. (Feb.) (c) Copyright PWxyz, LLC. All rights reserved (c) Copyright PWxyz, LLC. All rights reserved Review by Library Journal Review In his brief life, Aubrey Beardsley (1872-98) made himself into his finest creation. Diagnosed with tuberculosis at 16, Beardsley knew his time was limited; though he had almost no formal training, pen and ink became his medium. His first commission was for J.M.

Dent & Co.: 20 illustrations and 500 decorations for a new edition of Sir Thomas Malory's Le Morte d'Arthur. The art world was taken by his sensual illustrations, with lush curves that that seemed at once Japanese and Art Nouveau. Beardsley's incredible output as a book illustrator, poet, writer, and master of poster design covered just six years. Witty and willfully perverse, he was popular with both the Aesthetic Movement and the Pre-Raphaelites, including Oscar Wilde, Edward Burne-Jones, Max Beerbohm, and most of the artistic luminaries of the "Purple Nineties." Sturgis, a freelance writer and art critic, has uncovered new material and used many previously untapped sources to capture Beardsley in the first full-length biography in 20 years. Highly recommended.Joseph C. Hewgley, Nashville P.L. (c) Copyright 2010. Library Journals LLC, a wholly owned subsidiary of Media Source, Inc. No redistribution permitted. (c) Copyright Library Journals LLC, a wholly owned subsidiary of Media Source, Inc. No redistribution permitted.

AUTHOR NOTES Matthew Sturgis is a freelance writer and critic who has written art criticism for Harpers & Queen, travel pieces for the Sunday Telegraph and football reports for the Independent on Sunday. He is the author of Passionate Attitudes: the English Decadence of the 1890s, and the highly praised Aubrey Beardsley. He resides in London. (Bowker Author Biography) The Art of Aubrey Beardsley The Art of Aubrey Beardsley: A Fin de Siecle Critique of Victorian Society by Erin Smith In the late Victorian period, many English, among other Europeans, were beginning to question the benefits of the rapid change and industrialization which characterized most of the nineteenth century. As a result, the Victorian value system and social order, which fit in so well with industrial capitalism, came under attack. In England by the late 1880's, although much of the mainstream art and literature still upheld Victorian values and social order, an avant-garde movement of artists and writers began to criticize and satirize Victorian society. Aubrey Beardsley was an illustrator who took part in this movement, and became known in the larger context of Art Nouveau.

In criticizing Victorian society, Beardsley focused on the sexual sphere. He was fully aware that challenges to Victorian values came not only from the avant-garde, but from the Women's Movement, which by the 1880's, had made some gains in the areas of education and economic rights. Through his bizarre and symbolic style, Beardsley's drawings blur gender lines and mock male superiority. They also play on Victorian anxieties about sexual expression and men's fear of female superiority. The phrase Fin de Siecle came from the title of a French play, and became a popular expression which symbolized the mood in England from the 1870's to the turn of the century. During this time, Britain was a power in decline. Economically, the industrial middle class was feeling strain from the "great depression" of the 1880's and increasing foreign competition in trade. Victorian notions of authority were also being threatened by extended franchise, and the Irish demand for home rule. < 1 > These factors helped to create a mood of pessimism which influenced cultural life. In the cultural sphere, many intellectuals feared that Victorian society had become static.

Matthew Arnold, expressed this fear in Culture and Anarchy (1869), arguing that the point of culture is "not having a resting, but a growing and a becoming." < 2 > In the 1880's, many avant-garde artists and writers challenged the mainstream Victorian art scene which they considered static and outmoded. This reaction became manifest in the so-called "Decadent" art movement which exhibited an extreme expression of Fin de Siecle pessimism. < 3 > During the period of the "Decadence" (1880-1900), artists and writers reacted against high Victorian values. < 4 > The Decadents preferred pessimism to optimism, the decayed to the living, the abnormal to the normal, and the artificial to the natural. As avantgarde artists, they were constantly engaged in a search for the new. In society, they looked to the "New Woman" and the "new hedonism," and culturally, there was "new drama" and Art Nouveau.

< 5 > They were influenced by the aestheticism of the 1870's whose slogan was "art for art's sake," where art was appreciated solely for its intrinsic pleasure. < 6 > This contrasts with the Victorian utilitarian concept of art, where art does not exist merely for pleasure's sake, but must serve some higher purpose. Victorians also attached a moral dimension in judging artistic merit, and felt that only a good person can create good art. In reaction to this idea, the Decadents attempted to live their lives according to their concept of art. As a result, many of the leading artists of this movement lived decadent lifestyles, and were suspected of drug use and homosexuality. < 7 > The reaction of the "Decadence" paralleled social changes that were occurring under the impetus of the women's movement. While the Decadents criticized Victorian values, the women's movement threatened to break down the entire Victorian social structure. During the second half of the nineteenth century, widespread social changes began to alter the status of women in Victorian society. The first of these changes gave women broader legal protection.

The Matrimonial Causes Act of 1857 extended the grounds for divorce, and was revised in 1878, to make divorce more affordable for women, and give them more custody rights. The Married Women's Property Acts of 1870, 1874, and 1882 gave women the right to own and control property before and during marriage. Also, the school system was reformed so that women could have an education equal to that of men. These legal changes were accompanied by alterations in women's social and economic standing. Job reform gave women better training, benefits, standards, and working conditions. Teaching and nursing became women's professions, and women also worked as secretaries, clerks, civil servants, lawyers, editors, journalists, and physicians. < 8 > Women who worked helped to break down the Victorian stereotype of women as a weak domestic creature who must submit to her husband's or her father's will. By the 1890's women began to take control over their own lives. Linda Zatlin describes the New Women of the 1890's: They married later and bore fewer children. They began to dress without constricting stays.

They ate in restaurants without male companions, without fearing attacks on their reputations. They began to travel alone on bicycles, on the underground, on the railroad, for in doing so they were no longer assumed to be prostitutes. < 9 > There was much resistance to these changes, as many Victorians preferred to hold on to their traditional notions of a woman's role. The debate over women's place in society became especially turbulent in the 1890's, when many men began to see the New Woman as a personal and a social threat. Victorian society had formed patriarchal institutions which were based on the premise that women were inferior and thus dependent on men. This notion of women also served to define men as the opposite of women. In other words, men were strong, rational, aggressive, and superior. Thus, because male superiority was contingent upon female inferiority in this system, it is easy to see how threatening to men the women's movement could seem. Not only did men fear losing their superior status, but they were also anxious that the social changes for women could lead to female superiority.

A Beardsley biographer Ian Fletcher writes, "The particular anxieties about the age may have been conscious and articulate, but the diffused, subconscious, and inarticulate anxieties could only express themselves through symbols." < 10 > In this case, Beardsley created a highly symbolic and interiorized world through which his art was a perfect vehicle for the illustration of these anxieties. Throughout Beardsley's short career, his art can be seen as an insightful criticism of the hypocrisies of Victorian society. Because of this, his drawings were criticized by mainstream artists, guardians of Victorian decency, and even his own colleagues. Most of these criticisms however, did not deal with the thematic content of Beardsley's illustrations. Rather, they criticized his bizarre and grotesque style. In order to better understand this style we must examine Beardsley in the larger context of Art Nouveau. Though Art Nouveau was an international movement, Fin de Siecle England played an important role in its development through the Arts and Crafts Movement and the "Decadence." The Arts and Crafts Movement was founded by William Morris, who set up guild shops to produce handmade crafts of beauty and utility.

In this movement, art was given a moral dimension, where the artist creates in order to better himself and his fellow humans. < 11 > The moralists of the Arts and Crafts Movement merged with the immoralists of the "Decadence" in a shared desire for artistic unity and new forms of artistic expression. The Arts and Crafts Movement was a reaction against the cheap imitations of craftsmanship that resulted from the mass production of goods, while the Decadents were tired of the imitation of nature and past artistic styles prevalent in mainstream Victorian art. Art Nouveau was also influenced by the Symbolist Movement, which rejected realism in art. < 12 > The ultimate formulation of Art Nouveau came with the symbolism of the line, where "line became melodious, agitated, undulating flowing, flaming." < 13 > This aspect of Art Nouveau can be seen in the linear and symbolic qualities of Beardsley's drawings. Other aspects of Art Nouveau which can be seen in Beardsley's art include twodimensionality, decorative patterns, and exotic influences. Beardsley's first opportunity to make an impression on the art world came through his work with Oscar Wilde.

Wilde was a writer, and one of the most influential members of the "Decadence." Beardsley became associated with him when he agreed to do the illustrations for the English version of Wilde's play, Salome. The plot, which revolved around sex, vice, and corruption, is similar to Beardsley's illustrations in that both deal with a highly symbolic and self-created reality. Ian Fletcher claims that the Salome drawings are some of Beardsley's finest work. He points out that of all of Beardsley's drawings, they have had the most influence on subsequent artists and on the popular image of Beardsley. < 14 > Nevertheless, these drawings were roundly criticized by Beardsley's contemporaries. Even Wilde was not pleased with the drawings. He said, "I admire, I do not like Aubrey's illustrations." < 15 > Mainstream artists and art critics ignored Beardsley's explicit sexual themes, and denounced his aesthetics. The Times described the drawings as "unintelligible for the most part and, so long as they are unintelligible, repulsive." < 16 > From this point on, Beardsley was associated with Oscar Wilde in the public mind.

As a result, he was not only criticized individually, but was also charged with Wilde's offenses. < 17 > After his Salome illustrations had made him well known as one of the Decadents, Beardsley became the art editor of two Fin de Siecle literary magazines, first the Yellow Book, and then The Savoy. These periodicals offered him many opportunities for artistic expression and opened up new avenues for his social criticism. Beardsley worked on the first five issues of the Yellow Book, but was fired when his name became involved with the Wilde scandal. < 18 > In April of 1895, after withdrawing from a libel suit against the Marquess of Queensbury, Oscar Wilde was arrested on a charge of committing indecent acts, and the newspapers declared he was carrying a Yellow Book under his arm. Those who considered themselves guardians of Victorian decency, went to the Yellow Book Publishers and demanded to see Beardsley's drawings. They found them upsetting, and pressured the publishers to relieve Beardsley as art editor. < 19 > Beardsley was fired, but was then engaged as art editor for the Savoy.

Though he was dying of tuberculosis, Beardsley continued to feverishly turn out illustrations for the Savoy and other projects. Often violent hemorrhages would set him back, but as soon as he could hold a pen in his hand, he would continue his drawings. This creative energy stayed with him until he died in 1898, at the age of twenty-five. < 20 > A close analysis of Beardsley's drawings reveal more than a witty and fantastic style. Because he was so intensely concerned about social issues, and particularly, the inequities and hypocrisies of Victorian society, his drawings not only critique Victorian vices, but support the breakdown of the patriarchal system. Many of Beardsley's illustrations reveal a world where the "New Woman" is empowered with knowledge, free to expand her gender boundaries, and fully capable of experiencing a sexuality based on equality. One of Beardsley's underlying themes in his drawings is the depiction of vice in a male context. For Beardsley, vice was the male struggle for power. His drawings depict men who lust for wealth, men who attempt to corrupt other men intellectually, and men who use sexuality as a weapon in the struggle for dominance.

< 21 > In defending this aspect of his art, Beardsley said, "People hate to see their darting vices depicted [but] vice is terrible and it should be depicted." < 22 > Illustration 1 Beardsley's criticism of materialism is evident in his drawing of the robber chief intended for The Forty Thieves (illus. 1). The body of the chief is bejewelled and monstrous, extending beyond the parameters of the page. In her analysis, Zatlin refers to him as a "vast and impotent eunuch," whose sexual urges have been replaced with a desire for wealth. As a decadent materialist, "his excresent flesh and opulent jewels attest to a grotesque fascination with the physical." < 23 > Clearly then, Beardsley was questioning the ultimate good of vast accumulations of wealth. For Beardsley, corruption through wealth was not confined to the eighteenth century aristocracy, but could also be found in the nineteenth century industrial middle classes. Though middle class Victorians may have espoused values of hard work and thrift, their resulting wealth didn't necessarily make them "good" people.

In studying Beardsley's art as social criticism, it becomes evident how he suggests that the wealthy Victorians were just as susceptible to corruption as their eighteenth century counterparts. Illustration 2 Beardsley, as a member of the avant garde, also criticized the Victorian art world with its pressure to conform to the Victorian artistic ideal. Here, he outwardly criticizes the Victorian art world in his satirization of mainstream artists. This is most evident in an illustration which was a prospective cover for The Savoy magazine (illus. 2). In the drawing, Beardsley used the image of John Bull to represent the established artist. A foppish and grotesquely overweight version of John Bull stands on a stage to announce some new movement in the art world. < 24 > He is "pompously self confident" and "disdaining to look at the audience." < 25 > However, under the curtain, a small boy is peeping out at the audience. This represents the new artist who will be showcased in The Savoy.

According to Zatlin: "This young artist has no material power yet, as indicated by his nakedness, but he sees both the audience at which John Bull disdains to look at, and the art still concealed behind the curtain." < 26 > His knowledge of both worlds thus constitutes a latent power. The Savoy cover shows how out of touch Beardsley felt the Victorians were with the creative arts. As a result, he challenged Victorian notions of conformity in the art world by criticizing those who held authority in mainstream Victorian art. According to Beardsley, the new artist was more aware of the world around him, and hence would soon replace the existing art authorities with a more modem" approach. Illustration 3 The vice, however, which Beardsley considered far more heinous than materialism and forced artistic conformity was the male use of sexuality as a weapon in the struggle for dominance. A great majority of his illustrations depict this vice, none of which conceal the ugliness of its consequences. This can be seen in Juvenal Scourging Woman, a drawing intended for The Sixth Satire of Juvenal (illus. 3).

Whereas some Victorian artists such as Lord Leighton would portray male sexual domination as sensual, Beardsley creates a brutal scene without a hint of sensuality. < 27 > The woman, who is neither young nor beautiful, is impaled on a shaft, which is suggestive of rape, but also of a pedestal on which a woman might be displayed as a statue. This position also echoes the Victorian ideal of putting women on a pedestal, but in the drawing she is tied there against her will. Zatlin writes: "Whether a statue exemplifies an act of torture or compels one's adoration, it is an abstraction rather than an individual human being." < 28 > This drawing expresses the dangers which are inherent in the objectivization of women. That is, when men view women as abstractions, they deny women their autonomy and individuality, and thus make them targets for brutality. Through his criticisms of Victorian vices, Beardsley offers an alternative vision to the hypocrisy and patriarchy of Victorian society. In many of his fantastic and grotesque designs, he creates a world where gender lines blur, and women are depicted as aggressive, powerful, and sexual. This accounts for the erotic themes in much of Beardsley's art.

Like the other Decadents, Beardsley was tired of Victorian social pretensions which censored sex in art and literature, and treated women as sexual objects. Rather, he portrays women who he feels are symbolic of the "New Woman" in Victorian society. Some of the best examples of the Beardsley woman can be seen in his Salome drawings. These drawings portray a warped vision of equality between the sexes, where the female subject expresses traditionally male vices of materialism, lust, and a desire to dominate. In three drawings, The Eyes of Herod, The Stomach Dance, and The Climax, Salome's actions are clearly "unfeminine" (illus. 4-6). In The Eyes of Herod and The Stomach Dance, Salome bargains with Herod, offering her body for John the Baptist's head. In a patriarchal society, her body is her only means of bargaining, but the method in which she gets what she wants clearly defies the social conventions which confine her.

< 29 > Zatlin writes: "Through Salome's hard-eyed appraising glare, these pictures demonstrate for Victorians what was a distortion caused by her desire for vengeance, and her acceptance of a masculine role to achieve it." < 30 > Though Salome uses her sexuality, she is not aroused. She is assuming a masculine role in a power struggle with patriarchy. Illustration 4 Illustration 5 Illustration 6 The Salome drawings played upon the latent fears and anxieties of Victorians concerning the New Women. For example, Salome is portrayed in perverse extremes. Many of her gestures are masculine and unattractive, her sexuality is calculated, and her motives are evil in their nature. This is how many Victorian men felt women would emerge once they had achieved all of the objectives of the women's movement. Because male dominance and superiority was being challenged by this movement, men subconsciously feared their social order would be replaced with an equally repressive system of female superiority. As a result, these fears can express themselves in visions of monster-women such as Salome. Beardsley also depicts women who do not willingly conform to their role as mothers.

This challenges the Victorian idealization of motherhood, where all women are expected to naturally conform to their roles as mothers, and enjoy bearing and raising children. However, Beardsley was aware that many Victorian women feared pregnancy because of the high number of maternal deaths in childbirth. In responding to this anxiety, he created a series of drawings of women with fetuses (illus. 7). < 31 > In all of the pictures, the fetuses resemble diminutive monsters, and the women seem to express limited delight in their motherhood. Illustration 7 In what were his most shocking illustrations, Beardsley portrays women who are clearly unashamed about their bodies and sexual needs. Some of his drawings show women with their backs facing the front who appear to be masturbating (illus. 8). In the drawing, Two Athenian Women in Distress, both women masturbate openly (illus. 9). This drawing, however, was suppressed by the 1857 Censorship law because of its obvious suggestiveness. < 32 > Illustration 8 Illustration 9 Beardsley even goes further to suggest lesbianism in Victorian society. In a drawing entitled Black Coffee, two women sit in the booth of a cafe. (Illus.

10) Their faces reveal no emotion, yet one woman glances sideways, as if to see if anyone is looking, while she reaches into her companion's lap in what appears to be a sexual gesture. < 33 > This acknowledgement of female homosexuality contrasts with the early Victorian period, which accepted women in close relationships because women were not believed to have sexual desires of any kind. Illustration 10 Beardsley expressed a sexuality in his drawings which mocked. the prudishness of the Victorian age, and advocated full freedom to explore sexuality. He shocked Victorians with his grotesque and highly unnatural style, and drawings of nude bodies which were not idealized. Nonetheless, his drawings do not explicitly depict fornication or denigrate women. For these reasons, Beardsley's art can arguably be placed in the sphere of erotica rather than pornography. Aubrey Beardsley's drawings also serve as an important Fin de Siecle criticism of Victorian society. Though he was an important leader during the "Decadence" and an innovator in Art Nouveau, his art stands out as one of the most shocking and fantastic critiques of Victorian society.

Through the medium of his highly symbolic and esoteric drawings, Beardsley revealed the hypocrisy of the Victorian patriarchal social structure. Victorian society tagged his art as controversial because Beardsley became involved with social issues, and supported sexual freedom. However, this was not the strongest reason for his controversy. For repressed Victorians though, Beardsley's most dangerous weapon was his perceptiveness: in his drawings, they could see visual representations of their most latent desires and anxieties. Notes Aubrey Beardsley on ArtStack - art online Early life, education and early career[ edit ] Aubrey Beardsley, c. 1895 Beardsley was born in Brighton , England, on 21 August 1872, and christened on 24 October 1872. [1] His father, Vincent Paul Beardsley (1839–1909), was the son of a tradesman; Vincent had no trade himself, and relied on a private income from an inheritance that he received from his maternal grandfather when he was 21.

[2] Vincent's wife, Ellen Agnus Pitt (1846–1932), was the daughter of Surgeon- Major William Pitt of the Indian Army. The Pitts were a well-established and respected family in Brighton, and Beardsley's mother married a man of lesser social status than might have been expected. Soon after their wedding, Vincent was obliged to sell some of his property in order to settle a claim for his " breach of promise " from another woman who claimed that he had promised to marry her. [3] 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. The number of the house in Buckingham Road was 12, but the numbers were changed years ago, and it is now 31. [4] Aubrey Beardsley by Jacques-Émile Blanche . In 1883 his family settled in London, and in the following year he appeared in public as an "infant musical phenomenon", playing at several concerts with his sister.

[5] In January 1885 he began to attend Brighton, Hove and Sussex Grammar School , where he would spend the next four years. His first poems, drawings and cartoons appeared in print in "Past and Present", the school's magazine. In 1888 he obtained a post in an architect 's office, and afterwards one in the Guardian Life and Fire Insurance Company. In 1891, under the advice of Sir Edward Burne-Jones and Pierre Puvis de Chavannes , he took up art as a profession. In 1892 he attended the classes at the Westminster School of Art , then under Professor Fred Brown . [6] [5] Work[ edit ] The Peacock Skirt, 1893 In 1892, Beardsley travelled to Paris, where he discovered the poster art of Henri de Toulouse-Lautrec , and the Parisian fashion for Japanese prints, both of which would be major influences on his own style. Beardsley's first commission was Le Morte d'Arthur by Thomas Malory (1893), which he illustrated for the publishing house J. M. Dent and Company .

[7] His six years of major creative output 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 which became progressively more graceful, sometimes accompanied by A.B. in block capitals. [8] 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 also closely 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, and areas of fine detail contrasted with areas with none at all. The Stomach Dance, 1893 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.

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 , and the collection A Book of Fifty Drawings by Aubrey Beardsley (1897). [7] 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 cofounder 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.

[9] The Dancers Reward, Salomé : a tragedy in one act Beardsley was a caricaturist and did some political cartoons, mirroring Wilde's irreverent wit in art. Beardsley's work reflected the decadence of his era and his influence was enormous, clearly visible in the work of the French Symbolists, the Poster art Movement of the 1890s and the work of many later-period Art Nouveau artists such as Pape and Clarke. Some alleged works of Beardsley's were published in a book titled Fifty Drawings by Aubery Beardsley, Selected From the Collection of Mr. H. S. Nicols. These were later discovered to be forgeries, distinguishable by their almost pornographic erotic elements, rather than Beardsley's somewhat more subtle use of sexuality. [10] Private life[ edit ] 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 he had "a face like a silver hatchet, and grass green hair." [11] Beardsley was meticulous about his attire: dove-grey suits, hats, ties; yellow gloves.

He would appear at his publisher's in a morning coat and patent leather pumps . Although Beardsley was associated with the homosexual clique that included Oscar Wilde and other English aesthetes, the details of his sexuality remain in question. He was generally regarded as asexual. Speculation about his sexuality include rumours of an incestuous relationship with his elder sister, Mabel, who may have become pregnant by her brother and miscarried. [12] [13] During his entire career, Beardsley had recurrent attacks of tuberculosis. He suffered frequent lung haemorrhages and was often unable to work or leave his home. Beardsley converted to Roman Catholicism in March 1897, and subsequently begged his publisher, Leonard Smithers , to “destroy all copies of Lysistrata and bad drawings... by all that is holy all obscene drawings." Smithers ignored Beardsley’s wishes, and actually continued to sell reproductions as well as forgeries of Beardsley's work.

[8] "Isolde", illustration in Pan magazine Death[ edit ] In 1897 deteriorating health prompted his move to the French Riviera, where he died a year later on 16 March 1898 at the Cosmopolitan Hotel in Menton , France, attended by his mother and sister. He was 25 years of age and the cause of death was tuberculosis . Following a Requiem Mass in Menton Cathedral the following day, his remains were interred in the adjacent cemetery. [14] [15] Media portrayals[ edit ] In the BBC 1982 Playhouse drama Aubrey, written by John Selwyn Gilbert , Beardsley was portrayed by actor John Dicks . The drama concerned Beardsley's life from the time of Oscar Wilde’s arrest in April 1895, which resulted in Beardsley losing his position at The Yellow Book, to his death from tuberculosis in 1898.

[16] John the Baptizer and Salome Illustration from Short stories by Edgar Allan Poe Et in Arcadia Ego Illustration for Edgar Alan Poe's The Murders in the Rue Morgue The Barge Tailpiece or Cul de Lampe, 1893 The Rape of the Lock by Alexander Pope Cover of One Thousand and One Nights Masquerade The driving of Cupid from the garden - preparatory drawing for the cover design of 'The Savoy', no.3 1000+ images about Artist: Beardsley on Pinterest | Portrait, Illustrators and Victorian Pinterest • The world’s catalog of ideas Artist: Beardsley Aubrey Vincent Beardsley (21 August 1872 – 16 March 1898) was an English illustrator & author. His drawings in black ink, influenced by the style of Japanese woodcuts, emphasized the grotesque, decadent, & erotic. He was a leading figure in the Aesthetic movement which included Oscar Wilde and James A. McNeill Whistler. Beardsley's contribution to the development of the Art Nouveau & poster styles was significant, despite the brevity of his career before his early death from tuberculosis.

76 Pins453 Followers Aubrey Beardsley Biography, Art, and Analysis of Works | The Art Story Like The Art Story on Facebook Follow The Art Story on Google+ "People hate to see their darting vices depicted [but] vice is terrible and it should be depicted." Synopsis Aubrey Beardsley's artistic career was remarkably impactful for its brevity. In the seven years he was able to draw and write before succumbing to tuberculosis, Beardsley developed a reputation as one of the most controversial artists of his time. The linear elegance of his designs coupled with the artist's bizarre sense of humor and fascination with the grotesque and taboo simultaneously intrigued and repelled his Victorian audience. His illustrations comprised characteristics of Aestheticism, Decadence, Symbolism, and, most apparently, Art Nouveau. Beardsley's block prints allowed his work to be easily reproduced and widely circulated. The diabolic beauty of his work and its overwhelming presence in English publishing houses meant that Beardsley quickly became the most influential draftsman of his time.

Key Ideas More than mere illustrations, Beardsley's images captured the mood of the accompanying text, while aggressively critiquing repressive Victorian concepts of sexuality, beauty, gender roles, and consumerism. Beardsley's poster art and essay, "The Art of the Hoarding" (1894) changed how the public thought about art and advertising. The two, according to the artist, were not mutually exclusive. His theatre posters manifested his theory and helped revolutionize poster production in Europe and America. Beardsley borrowed aspects from various artistic movements and adapted them to suit his own purposes. He appropriated the Decadent themes of decay, death, and eroticism to shock viewers out of their complacency; while his delicately interlacing forms and sinuous arabesque lines make his work important in marking the visual shift from the Aesthetic movement to the modern Art Nouveau style. In addition to his illustrations, Beardsley also composed poems and prose. His later writings were as Decadent as his pictures. Beardsley is best known for Under the Hill, an unfinished erotic novel about Venus and Tannhauser, for which he created the text as well as the accompanying illustrations.

Most Important Art How Sir Tristram Drank of the Love Drink (1893-4) Produced for Thomas Malory's Le Morte D'Arthur, this illustration was one of many that helped tell the author's interpretation of the story of King Arthur, so beloved by the Pre-Raphaelites. The image refers to Tristram and Isolde's doomed love story, which predates and likely influenced the romantic tale of Lancelot and Guinevere. Beardsley depicts the couple as androgynous figures separated by a decorative pillar that bifurcates the composition. The flowers within the picture framing and adorning its border seem ready to burst, suggesting fertile ripeness or perhaps foretelling the blossoming of something more sinister. Although the book was considered only moderately successful at the time, it has since been dubbed Beardsley's first masterpiece and is credited with popularizing his unique early style that blended a simplified interpretation of textile designer William Morris's medieval floral patterns, Pre-Raphaelite romance, and the darker Decadent themes of sex and death. This drawing is not only an early example of the intersection of the Arts and Crafts movement and Art Nouveau; it was also a social critique.

Beardsley's androgynous figures challenged established Victorian gender roles and traditional concepts of sexuality. His illustrations for Le Morte D'Arthur were the last created in his early style and were followed by his mature work in which the influence of the Japanese aesthetic is more evident. Illustrated Book Like The Art Story on Facebook Biography Childhood Aubrey Vincent Beardsley was an artistic and musical prodigy from an early age. Born to a father who preferred to squander his inheritance rather than adopt a trade, Beardsley's creative prowess helped stave off complete destitution. At age 12 he and his older sister Mabel (who would later become an actress) performed musical duets in a public concert. A witty child with a wicked sense of humour, Beardsley drew caricatures of his grammar school teachers and by age 14 had published his first poem, "The Valiant," as well as a series of sketches titled "The Jubilee Cricket Analysis" in the school's magazine, Past and Present. From childhood Beardsley's life expectancy was short and uncertain. At the age of seven he contracted tuberculosis, a disease then known as "consumption" because sufferers appeared to waste away.

Beardsley's fragile health meant that he was somewhat frail as a boy and often found himself confined to his bed, unable to attend school or play with his peers. The impact of this disease on the artist's childhood was no doubt on his mind when as an adult he created Self-portrait in Bed (1894). The ink drawing depicts a small child nearly swallowed up by the enormous bed that he occupies. An inscription in French at the top left reads: "By the gods not all monsters are in Africa." The quote is as much a reference to his lifelong struggle with tuberculosis as it is indicative of his fascination with the grotesque and macabre. Beardsley worked briefly as a clerk for an insurance agency after grammar school, all the while developing a portfolio of Pre-Raphaelites-inspired drawings. In 1891, at age 19, Beardsley accompanied his sister to the studio of painter and illustrator Sir Edward Burne-Jones. Although the siblings were initially denied admittance, Burne-Jones's interest was piqued when he noticed Mabel's striking red hair. Beardsley soon built up the courage to show the artist his portfolio.

Deeply impressed by the youth's obvious talent and imagination, Burne-Jones recommended Beardsley to the Westminster School of Art. There, Beardsley received instruction from painter Frederick Brown. A consumptive relapse shortly thereafter meant that from then on Beardsley lived on a knife's edge, relishing in a lust for life even as he faced the prospect of an early death. - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - Early Training Sir Edward Burne-Jones was not the only one to notice Beardsley. Within a year of enrolling in art school, the young artist received an offer from publisher Joseph Dent to illustrate Sir Thomas Malory's epic, Le Morte D'Arthur (1893). Impressed by the artist's ability, Dent also observed that Beardsley was "a strange boy" and probably "not long for this world." Despite his apparent frailty, Beardsley produced over 300 illustrations within a short time frame.

The resulting work blends the classical poses and complex compositions found in Pre-Raphaelite art and the decorative patterning, flat two-dimensionality, and erotica of Japanese Ukiyo-ye prints with a Decadent fixation on death and decay. His illustrations for Le Morte D'Arthur made Beardsley famous and led to his introduction to Oscar Wilde, a provocative author and important figure in the Decadent and Aesthetic movements in England. Deeply influenced by the French Decadent theory of art outlined by Theophile Gautier and exemplified in Charles Baudelaire's Les Fleurs du Mal (1857), Wilde was an outspoken critic of repressive Victorian sensibilities and supported the Aesthetic notion of "art for art's sake." His philosophical novel The Picture of Dorian Gray (1891) plays on these ideas by telling a story about a man, Dorian, who sells his soul for eternal beauty and immortality, but falls into depravity. Wilde, who acknowledged the controversial novel had an autobiographical component, lived his art. His decadent lifestyle and homosexuality shocked prudish Victorian society.

Beardsley's own sexuality is uncertain, but nonetheless aroused feverish public speculation, including accusations of homosexuality, transvestitism, and incest with his sister. A meticulous dresser, Beardsley's neatly pressed morning jacket, fine gloves, and patent leather pumps only fueled rumors, as did his association with Wilde. Punch magazine dubbed Beardsley "Daubrey Wierdsley" and "Awfully Weirdly." The artist's relationship with Wilde, though it initially bolstered his career, quickly became tumultuous and, ultimately cost Beardsley his position as art editor for The Yellow Book, an important Decadent magazine, in 1895. In 1894, Beardsley, having just met the notorious author, commenced illustrating the English translation of Wilde's Salomé (1894). The resulting work reached new heights of public offence with its erotic, ghoulish, deformed figures, phallic candles, femme fatales, and blood-drinking flowers. Many images were condemned as obscene, or bore no relation to the text. And yet they had such a diabolic beauty that the egotist Wilde began to worry that they might outshine his work.

In particular Wilde criticized the Japanese aesthetic in Beardsley's work, which he considered contrary to the Byzantine character of Salomé. The decorative embroidery on Salomé's gown in The Peacock Skirt as well as intricate interlacing floral patterns throughout the book were largely inspired by Whistler's Peacock Room, which Beardsley so greatly admired. Offended by Wilde's critique, Beardsley mocked Wilde in playful caricatures such as Oscar Wilde at Work (1895), which shows the author plagiarizing the Bible, Swinburne, and French Verbs. Wilde retaliated by publically declaring that he had "invented Aubrey Beardsley" - a preposterous claim noted by journalists. Victorian society was (not surprisingly) appalled by Salomé. The Art Journal described Beardsley's work as, "terrible in its weirdness and suggestions of horror and wickedness." Seemingly untroubled by his critics and perhaps playing on their anxiety, Beardsley described his imaginative, theatrical, and macabre work as populated by "subjects [which] were quite mad and a little indecent.

Strange hermaphroditic figures wandering about in period costumes, quite a new world of my own creation." Beardsley's talent extended beyond book illustrations to poster designs and magazine editing. In keeping with his interest in theatre, the artist created a poster for the Avenue Theatre that featured the play A Comedy of Sighs (1894). At the time, the world was on the cusp of an advertising revolution. Recognizing this, Beardsley observed in his essay, "The Art of the Hoarding" (1894) that if advertisements were to be unavoidable in modern life, they should be beautiful. The artist foresaw "London... resplendent with advertisements, and, against a leaden sky, sky-signs will trace their formal arabesque. Beauty has laid siege to the city, and telegraph wires shall no longer be the sole joy of our aesthetic perceptions." Other examples of the beautifully rendered advertisements Beardsley produced could be found in magazines, including The Yellow Book, for which he briefly served as art editor. The quarterly publication featured essays by such giants as H. G. Wells, William Butler Yeats, and Henry James. It mocked Victorian society for censoring sex in art and literature.

This sexually repressive Victorian attitude came from both rational (syphilis was rampant) and irrational reasons (they thought masturbation caused physical disorders). In his work for The Yellow Book, Beardsley revealed his adherence to Pre-Raphaelite notions of repressed desire and directly challenged Victorian morals by obscuring the line between art and obscenity. Mature Period The Yellow Book was a sell-out, despite being damned by the press as "repulsive" and "insolent." Its name intentionally called to mind yellow paper bound French decadent novels deplored by conservative Victorians. If this blatant association was not enough, within a year of its initial publication, Beardsley, then its art editor, became engulfed in the explosive public scandal of the Oscar Wilde rent boy/libel trials of 1895. The press reported that Wilde, upon being arrested for indecency and sodomy, was led away with a "yellow book" under his arm - a reference to his notorious character Dorian Gray. The public, however, believed the text to be Beardsley's journal of the same name. Public outrage convinced The Yellow Book publisher John Lane to fire Beardsley.

Thus, by age 22, the young artist had lost his income and, it seemed, his career and reputation. Perversely, perhaps enjoying his newfound notoriety, Beardsley promptly moved into the very suite in Geneux's Private Hotel that had been named in Wilde's trial. Beardsley was not unemployed for long. A leading distributor of erotica, Leonard Smithers collaborated with Beardsley to found a rival magazine, The Savoy, in 1896. Smithers also hired the artist to illustrate Alexander Pope's The Rape of the Lock (1896). Unfortunately, that year Beardsley's tuberculosis returned with violent haemorrhaging, so that he was often too ill to create. The work he could achieve was beautifully elegant and intricate. Gone were the jet-black swaths and blank spaces. Now grey tonal variations and delicately rendered details characterized his work. Beardsley's new style was also more explicitly pornographic. He portrayed female sexuality, phalluses, and female masturbation, for example, in Aristophanes' Lysistrata (1896) at a time when women were not believed to experience sexual desire.

Pope's The Rape of the Lock was beautifully bound in turquoise cloth and gold. On seeing it James McNeill Whistler, who had rejected earlier attempts by Beardsley to cultivate a friendship, reduced Beardsley to tears by telling him, "Aubrey, I have made a very great mistake - you are a very great artist." Despite Whistler's accolades, Beardsley's work for Smithers, particularly Lysistrata, was deemed offensive. The publisher was accused of ruining Beardsley's morals and sacrificing his health. But Beardsley would not succumb to his ailment that quickly. Health permitting, Beardsley very much enjoyed the social scene and traveling. During their 1896 trip to Paris, for example, he, Smithers, and the poet Ernest Dowson visited Gabriel de Lautrec in Montmartre and there indulged in a night of hashish and dance halls. When the wine and revelry subsided, the sober Beardsley experienced a change of heart and converted to Roman Catholicism.

He promptly wrote to Smithers begging him to destroy all copies of Lysistrata and other obscene works "by all that is holy." Smithers, however, did not comply with his wishes and went on to publish Beardsley's collected work in A Book of Fifty Drawings (1897). Late Period The last years of Beardsley's life was spent trying to complete illustrations for Theophile Gautier's Madame Maupin and Ben Jonson's Volpone. Facing death, the artist wanted to leave behind a beautiful and worthy legacy. In a final collaboration with Smithers, the artist managed to create his own book, Under the Hill, for which he wrote the text as well as designed its illustrations. Early portions of this erotic story about Venus and Tannhauser appeared in issues of The Savoy (1896) in a slightly watered-down form. It was not until 1907 that Smithers published the entire manuscript which had been left unfinished at the time of Beardsley's death nearly a decade earlier. His health deteriorating, Beardsley took up residence on the French Riviera in 1896. Letters to friends show his decline to an inevitable and terrible death.

Sometimes he wrote despairingly, "I am literally crying with vexation," and other times in vain hope, "that the end is less near than it seems." In one of his last letters he expressed his regret to die when "such splendid things I had planned." Aubrey Beardsley died at the age of 25 in Menton, France. Like Dorian Gray, he would remain young forever. Legacy The Decadent movement, and the Aesthetic movement from which it emerged, paved the way for modern art. Beardsley's work possesses the decorative qualities of Aestheticism as well as the pessimistic hedonism and macabre humor of the Decadents. As such, Dada painter George Grosz noted in 1946 that Beardsley influenced "practically every modern designer after 1900." The artist's designs were particularly important to the development of Art Nouveau. Some other important artists who took note of Beardsley are Wassily Kandinsky, Pablo Picasso and artists of the Glasgow School, such as Charles Rennie Mackintosh.

The theatrical beauty of Beardsley's designs were used in the Hollywood production of Salomé in 1921 and Leon Bakst's sets for the Ballets Russes. Beardsley's work has been regularly re-appreciated in Art Nouveau revivals, particularly during the 1960s in Peter Max's cartoons for the Beatles' film Yellow Submarine. He was also included in the collage on the Beatles Sgt Pepper album, which suggests his significance as a major influence on the musical group. Beardsley's work continues to shock audiences today. Most recently, in 2007 Beardsley's Cinesias entreating Myrrhina to coition from Lysistrata was exhibited at London's Barbican with access limited to viewers 18 years and older. Influences and Connections Aubrey Beardsley’s illustrations for Oscar Wilde’s Salomé : Delaware Art Museum Aubrey Beardsley’s illustrations for Oscar Wilde’s Salomé January 28, 2015 On February 7 the Museum opens Oscar Wilde’s Salomé: Illustrating Death and Desire (February 7-May 10, 2015).

The genesis for this exhibition was two-fold. Late in 2013 I learned that in February 2015 Opera Philadelphia was presenting Oscar, an opera in two acts written by composer Theodore Morrison from a libretto co-authored with English opera director John Cox which presents the life of Oscar Wilde as he reflects on his time of imprisonment in Reading Goal. The opera was jointly commissioned by Opera Philadelphia and Santa Fe Opera and premiered in Santa Fe in July of 2013. It seemed like an excellent opportunity to feature our recently purchased (2010) portfolio of Aubrey Beardsley’s “Drawings Illustrating Salomé” issued in 1906 by an unknown publisher. An English artist and illustrator, Beardsley (1872-1898) was a leading figure in the Aesthetic Movement, an off-shoot of Pre-Raphaelitism which was made manifest in both literature and the visual arts and included figures such as James McNeill Whistler and Oscar Wilde. Aestheticism embraced the “art for art’s sake” philosophy of the French writer Théophile Gautier, which advocated for a “true” art devoid of utilitarian function.

Beardsley was associated with a somewhat decadent aspect of Aestheticism which eventually developed into Art nouveau and was best represented in his work as editor of the avant-garde periodical The Yellow Book (1894-1897), named for the color of the covering which was placed on controversial French novels to hide objectionable content. The Irish writer and poet, Oscar Wilde (1854-1900) became one of London’s most popular playwrights in the last decades of the 19th century. In 1890 he published his only novel, The Picture of Dorian Gray, incorporating themes of decadence, duplicity, and beauty. The play, Salomé followed — written in French — in 1891. The Importance of being Earnest, perhaps his best-known drama (1891), was still on the London stage when Wilde was tried, convicted and imprisoned for gross indecency. In prison he wrote De Profundis (1897, published 1905), a long and searching letter recounting his spiritual journey throughout the trial.

His last published work, The Ballad of Reading Gaol (1898), was a long poem recounting the hardship of prison life. Today he is remembered for his brilliant witticisms and his role in promoting the British Aesthetic Movement. Figure 1. The Toilette of Salome I, 1906. Offset lithograph Acquisition Fund, 2010. DAM 2010 31.12. The story of the beheading of John the Baptist appears in the New Testament twice, in Mark 6:17–29 and Matthew 14:3–12. In the biblical narrative, Herod, a tetrarch of the Roman Empire, imprisons John the Baptist (called Iokanaan in Hebrew), fearful of his relationship with Jesus. Iokanaan had been outspoken with regard to Herod’s marriage to his brother’s wife, Herodius, enraging the latter. During the revelry of the festivities in celebration of his birthday, Herod promises Herodius’s daughter the head of Iokanann in exchange for her performance of the dance of the seven veils.

In his retelling of the narrative Wilde discarded the subtleties of biblical parable and modernized the story’s moral degeneracy with cadenced clarity and repetitious whispers of decadence which shocked critics and fascinated artists and illustrators. In June 1892 Sarah Bernhardt began rehearsals in London for a French-language production of Wilde’s new play, but prior to opening the drama was censored because of a longstanding prohibition against biblical characters on the English stage. While the cancelation of the play was devastating, it may well have provided added impetus for publication of the text. In 1893 the first edition of Salomé was co-published in French by Edmond Bailly’s Librairie de L’Art Indépendant in Paris and Elkin Mathews and John Lane’s Bodley Head in London. The volume contained only a small title-page decoration by the Belgian Symbolist, Félicien Rops, a harbinger of the long history of visual interpretation the text would engender.

Although largely panned by the critics, the 1893 publication attracted a growing curiosity amongst the reading public, including that of the controversial young artist and illustrator Aubrey Beardsley who was inspired to produce a single illustration, Salome, with the head of John the Baptist, reproduced in The Studio magazine in April 1893. It was undoubtedly this design which led to Beardsley’s eventual illustration of the text in its entirety. The synergistic confluence of “Oscar Wilde…the most visual writer, and Aubrey Beardsley the most literary artist of the 1890s” (Linda Zatlin, 2000) resulted in the first English edition of Salome, published by Elkin Mathews and John Lane in late February 1894. Beardsley’s 16 designs (reproduced by photomechanical engraving by Carl Hentschel), were accompanied by a translation of Wilde’s French attributed to Lord Alfred Douglas.

Although the book contained 16 plates, including a frontispiece, decorative title-page and a list of illustrations, Beardsley had completed a total of 19 illustrations for the edition, three of which were replacements for versions John Lane felt were too sexually explicit. Beardsley wrote to his friend, Robert Ross in November, 1893: “The book will be out soon after Xmas. I have withdrawn three of the illustrations and supplied their places with three new ones (simply beautiful and quite irrelevant).” Wilde’s role in the making of the illustrations remains unclear. But after the book’s publication he wrote to the artist, Charles Ricketts, regarding what he felt to be Beardsley’s misinterpretation of certain characters: My Herod is like the Herod of Gustave Moreau – wrapped in his jewels and sorrows. My Salomé is a mystic, the sister of Salammbô, a Sainte Thérèse who worships the moon; dear Aubrey’s designs are like the scribbles a precocious schoolboy makes on the margins of his copybooks.

Despite Wilde’s dismissive comments (possibly stimulated by the unflattering caricatures Beardsley drew of him in several designs), it could be suggested that these illustrations have come to eclipse the text in notoriety. As one scholar noted, “Beardsley gave the text its first true public and modern performance.” (Peter Raby, 1998). Certainly Beardsley’s images set the standard for all illustrators to come. Figure 2. The Toilette of Salome II, 1906. Offset lithograph Acquisition Fund, 2010. DAM 2010 31.13. The history of the 1906 “Portfolio of Aubrey Beardsley’s Drawings Illustrating ‘Salome’ by Oscar Wilde” (the contents of which will be part of the upcoming exhibition) is unclear. Two of the 17 offset lithographs in the portfolio were not printed in the 1894 publication of the drama. In addition, several of the compositions which were included in the 1894 edition appear in the portfolio without the alterations made to omit overtly sexual details.

For example, the portfolio includes two versions of The Toilette of Salomé, an image of Salomé preparing to perform the dance of the seven veils, having successfully outwitted Herod into promising her the head of Iokanaan in return for her seductive performance. It is not difficult to discern the reasons for the rejected version (Figure 1) as the salacious details would have been obvious to even the most naïve of viewers. Salomé, attended by a sinister masked figure, is seated with a covering draped casually around her shoulders leaving her torso fully exposed. A second attendant, of ambiguous gender, stands to her left, completely unclothed, offering a tray of tea. A similarly naked on-looker is seated at lower left, hands placed suggestively between his/her legs. In comparison, the composition for the published image (Figure 2) includes only Salomé and a single attendant, the latter still masked, but of a slightly less nefarious nature. Both figures are fully clothed. Symbols of dissipation, however, abound. Several pairs of scissors, alluding to castration, signify Salomé’s dominatrix character.

Decadent books (which appeared in the rejected version) are here reproduced, the titles on the spines clearly visible. These include Émile Zola’s Nana, Paul Verlaine’s Fêtes galantes, and an unidentified text by the Marquis de Sade. As is more often than not the case in Beardsley’s visual accompaniments to the text, the moment chosen for illustration does not reference a specific moment in the narrative. Wilde’s text does not include a description of Salomé preparing for the performance. This is purely Beardsley’s invention. Wilde’s response to Beardsley’s illustration is ambiguous. Despite his oft-quoted misgivings, he inscribed a copy of the text, “For Aubrey, for the only artist who, besides myself, knows what the dance of the seven veils is, and can see that invisible dance.” The exhibition will also showcase the complete illustrations of the contemporary illustrator Barry Moser (b. 1940) created to accompany a new translation of Wilde’s original French text (Translated by Joseph Donohue, published by the University of Virginia Press, 2011). These illustrations were generously lent by the artist for the exhibition.

These, the most recent illustrations to the text, and several books showcasing the work of various artists working in the period between Beardsley and Moser, will make up the remaining contents of the show. In creating this exhibition I have been fascinated by the range of responses to Wilde’s drama, and I am reminded that a seminal work of fiction engenders infinite interpretations generation after generation, century upon century. As I have engaged with Wilde’s Salomé I have been awed by the wonder of his particular genius, specifically his sagacity in interpreting this biblical tale of morality. I hope visitors to the exhibition will discover the magic of the serendipitous marriage of text and image, author and artist that occurs throughout the history of illustration. Note: On Thursday, March 19 Dr. Joan Navarre, Associate Professor, University of Wisconsin will lecture on Beardsley and Wilde in a talk entitled “The mystery of the world is the visible”: Exploring Aubrey Beardsley’s Illustrations for Oscar Wilde’s Salomé. Share This:

Question: Of which artistic movement was Aubrey Beardsley a leading member ?
Answer: THE AESTHETIC MOVEMENT