Aubrey Beardsley | |
|---|---|
.jpg) Portrait byFrederick Hollyer, 1893 | |
| Born | Aubrey Vincent Beardsley (1872-08-21)21 August 1872 |
| Died | 16 March 1898(1898-03-16) (aged 25) Menton, France |
| Resting place | Cimetière du Vieux-Château,Menton, France[1] |
| Education | Westminster School of Art |
| Known for | Illustration,graphics/graphic arts |
| Notable work | The Climax |
| Movement | Art Nouveau,aestheticism |
Aubrey Vincent Beardsley (/ˈbɪərdzli/BEERDZ-lee; 21 August 1872 – 16 March 1898) was an Englishillustrator and author. His black ink drawings were influenced byJapanese woodcuts, and depicted the grotesque, the decadent, and the erotic. He was a leading figure in theaesthetic movement which also includedOscar Wilde andJames McNeill Whistler. Beardsley's contribution to the development of theArt Nouveau andposter styles was significant despite his early death fromtuberculosis. He is one of the importantModern Style figures.
Beardsley was born in Brighton,Sussex, England, on 21 August 1872 and christened on 24 October 1872.[2] His father, Vincent Paul Beardsley (1839–1909), was the son of aClerkenwell jeweller;[3][4] Vincent had no trade himself (partly owing to tuberculosis, from which his own father had died aged only 40),[5][6] and relied on a private income from an inheritance that he received from his maternal grandfather, a property developer, when he was 21.[7] 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 hisbreach 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 sisterMabel 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;[12][4] they would spend the next 20 years in rented accommodation, battling poverty. Ellen took to presenting herself as the "victim of amésalliance".[13][14] In 1884, Aubrey appeared in public as an "infant musical phenomenon", playing at several concerts with his sister.[15] In January 1885, he began to attendBrighton, Hove and Sussex Grammar School, where he spent the next four years. His first poems, drawings, and cartoons appeared in print inPast 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 ofSir Edward Burne-Jones andPierre Puvis de Chavannes, he took up art as a profession. In 1892, he attended the classes at theWestminster School of Art, then under ProfessorFred Brown.[16][15]
Beardsley travelled to Paris in 1892, where he discovered the poster art ofHenri de Toulouse-Lautrec and the Parisian fashion for Japanese prints. His first commission wasLe Morte d'Arthur byThomas Malory (1893), illustrated for the publishing houseJ.M. Dent and Company.[17] In 1894, a new translation ofLucian'sTrue History, with illustrations by Beardsley,William Strang, andJ. 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 ofLe Morte d'Arthur andThe Bon Mots, he used a Japanese-influenced mark that became progressively more graceful, sometimes accompanied by A.B. in block capitals.[19]
He co-foundedThe Yellow Book with American writerHenry 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 withAestheticism, the British counterpart ofDecadence andSymbolism. 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.
Beardsley was the most controversial artist of theArt Nouveau era, renowned for his dark and perverse images and grotesque erotica, which were the main themes of his later work. He satirizedVictorian values regarding sex, which at the time highly valued respectability, and men's fear of female superiority, as thewomen'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 Japaneseshunga artwork, featured enormous genitalia. His most famous erotic illustrations concerned themes of history and mythology; these include his illustrations for a privately printed edition ofAristophanes'Lysistrata and his drawings forOscar Wilde's playSalome, which eventually premiered in Paris in 1896. Other major illustration projects included an 1896 edition ofThe Rape of the Lock byAlexander Pope.[17]
He also produced extensive illustrations for books and magazines (e.g., for a deluxe edition of SirThomas Malory'sLe Morte d'Arthur) and worked for magazines such asThe Studio andThe Savoy, of which he was a co-founder. As a co-founder ofThe Savoy, Beardsley was able to pursue his writing as well as illustration, and a number of his writings, includingUnder the Hill (a story based on theTannhäuser legend) and "The Ballad of a Barber" appeared in the magazine.[22]
Beardsley was acaricaturist and did some political cartoons, mirroring Wilde's irreverent wit in art. Beardsley's work reflected thedecadence of his era and his influence was enormous, clearly visible in the work of the French Symbolists, thePoster Art Movement of the 1890s and the work of many later-period artists such asFrank C. Papé andHarry Clarke. Some alleged works of Beardsley's were published in a book titledFifty Drawings by Aubrey Beardsley, Selected from the Collection of Mr. H.S. Nicols. They were later discovered to be forgeries, distinguishable by their almost pornographic erotic elements rather than Beardsley's subtler use of sexuality.[23]
Beardsley often hid obscene details in his work; publishers took to examining works with a magnifying glass before publication.[24]
Beardsley's work continued to cause controversy in Britain long after his death. During an exhibition of Beardsley's prints held at theVictoria 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 was charged under obscenity laws.[25]
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".[26] Beardsley was meticulous about his attire: dove-grey suits, hats, ties, and yellow gloves. He appeared at his publisher's in amorning coat andcourt shoes.[27]
Although Beardsley was associated with the homosexual clique that included Oscar Wilde and other aesthetes, the details of his sexuality remain in question. In hisAutobiographies, 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.[28][29]
During his entire career, Beardsley had recurrent attacks of tuberculosis. He suffered frequent lung haemorrhages and often was unable to work or leave his home.
Beardsley converted toCatholicism in March 1897. The next year, the last letter before his death was to his publisherLeonard Smithers and close friendHerbert Charles Pollitt:
Postmark: March 7, 1898 | Jesus is our Lord and Judge | Dear Friend, I implore you to destroyall copies ofLysistrata and bad drawings … By all that is holy,all obscene drawings. | Aubrey Beardsley | In my death agony.[30]
Both men ignored Beardsley's wishes,[31][32] and Smithers actually continued to sell reproductions as well as forgeries of Beardsley's work.[19]
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 (now the Résidence Mont Fleuri private apartments) in Menton,Alpes-Maritimes, France, attended by his mother and sister. He was 25 years old. Following arequiem Mass in Menton Cathedral the following day, his remains were interred in the Cimetière du Trabuquet.[33][34]
In the 1982Playhouse dramaAubrey, written byJohn Selwyn Gilbert, Beardsley was portrayed by actorJohn Dicks. The drama concerned Beardsley's life from the time of Oscar Wilde's arrest in April 1895, which caused Beardsley to lose his position atThe Yellow Book, to his death from tuberculosis in 1898.[35] The BBC documentaryBeardsley and His Work was made in 1982.[36] Beardsley is featured on the cover ofThe Beatles'Sgt. Pepper's Lonely Hearts Club Band. The 1977 horror filmDeath 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.[37]
In March 2020, BBC Four broadcast the hour-long documentaryScandal & Beauty: Mark Gatiss on Aubrey Beardsley, presented byMark Gatiss. The programme coincided with the Beardsley exhibition atTate Britain.[38]
Beardsley's art is mentioned briefly in the 2011 version of theCar Seat Headrest song,Beach Life-in-Death.[39]
In 2019 theNational Leather Association International established an award named after Beardsley for creators of abstract erotic art.[40]
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One or more of the preceding sentences incorporates text from a publication now in thepublic domain: Chisholm, Hugh, ed. (1911). "Beardsley, Aubrey Vincent".Encyclopædia Britannica. Vol. 3 (11th ed.). Cambridge University Press. pp. 577–578.
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