Everything about Aubrey Beardsley totally explained
Aubrey Vincent Beardsley (
August 21,
1872 –
March 16,
1898) was an influential English
illustrator, and author, best known for his erotic illustrations.
Biography
Beardsley was born in
Brighton. 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. He attended
Bristol Grammar School in 1884, and 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.
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
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.
He was aligned with the
Yellow Book coterie of artists and writers. He was an art editor for the first four editions and produced 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.
Aubrey Beardsley was the most controversial artist of the
Art Nouveau era, renowned for his dark and perverse images and the grotesque erotica, which were the main themes of his later work. Some of his drawings, inspired by Japanese
shunga, featured enormous genitalia. His most famous erotic illustrations were on themes of history and
mythology, including his illustrations for
Aristophanes'
Lysistrata and
Wilde's
Salomé.
Beardsley illustrated
Oscar Wilde's play
Salomé - the play eventually premiered in Paris in 1896. He also produced extensive illustrations for books and magazines (for example for a deluxe edition of Sir
Thomas Malory's
Le Morte d'Arthur) and worked for magazines like
The Savoy and The Studio. Beardsley also wrote
Under the Hill, an unfinished erotic tale based loosely on the legend of
Tannhäuser.
Beardsley was also 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 like Pape and Clarke.
Beardsley was a public character as well as a private eccentric. He said, "I have one aim—the grotesque. If I'm not grotesque I'm nothing." Wilde said he'd "a face like a silver hatchet, and grass green hair." 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 aligned 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—which is hardly surprising, considering his chronic illness and his devotion to his work. Speculation about his sexuality include rumors of an incestuous relationship with his elder sister, Mabel, who may have become pregnant by her brother and miscarried.
Through his entire career, Beardsley had recurrent attacks of the disease that would end it. He suffered frequent lung hemorrhages and was often unable to work or leave his home.
Beardsley's emphasis of the erotic element is present in many of his drawings, but nowhere as boldly as in his illustrations for
Lysistrata which were done for a privately printed edition at a time when he was totally out of favor with polite society. One of his last acts after converting to Catholicism was to plead with his publisher to "destroy all copies to
Lysistrata and bad drawings...by all that's holy
all obscene drawings." His publisher, Leonard Smithers, not only ignored Beardsley wishes, but continued to sell reproductions and outright forgeries of Beardsley's work.
Beardsley was active till his death in
Menton,
France, at the age of 25 on
March 16,
1898, of
tuberculosis. He had been received into the
Roman Catholic church in 1895.
Characterization
"Aubrey Beardsley was so extravagantly foppish, so precious in his speech and so languid in his posturings that Oscar Wilde claimed him for his own invention.
On page 63, Weintraub quotes Wilde: "I invented Aubrey Beardsley." Weintraub disagrees: in his opinion, Beardsley invented himself.
In Popular Culture
Some of Beardsley's illustrations for Wilde's
Salomé appear in the
1968 Kinji Fukasaku film
Black Lizard (
Kurotokage).
Further Information
Get more info on 'Aubrey Beardsley'.
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