Aubrey Beardsley

by Stephen Calloway

Discover the work of Aubrey Beardsley, a complex and intriguing artist who shocked and delighted late-Victorian London Aubrey Beardsley (1872–1898) is best remembered for his powerful illustrations for Salomé by Oscar Wilde. Spanning just seven years, his intense, prolific career as a draftsman and illustrator was cut short when he died at the age of 25. His subversive black-and-white drawings and his complex persona became synonymous with He alighted on the perverse and erotic aspects of life and legend, shocking audiences with his bizarre sense of humor and fascination with the grotesque. His keen observation of his contemporaries makes him of his time, but his distinct style has resonated with subsequent generations. A major influence on the development of Art Nouveau, and on psychedelic pop culture and design in the late 1960s, Beardsley’s drawings remain a key reference for many artists today. Here, short essays on aspects of Beardsley’s remarkable career complement reproductions of his fascinating work.

Genres: Art, Biography, Nonfiction, Art and Photography

224 pages, Hardcover

First published March 1, 1998

About the author

Stephen Calloway is a curator of paintings at the Victoria and Albert Museum in London.

He is an expert on 19th century art, and has made a particular study of the decadent and dandy culture of the fin de siecle.

He staged the V&A's exhibition on the 1890s, 'High Art and Low Life' in 1993, and curated the 'Aubrey Beardsley Centenary Show' in Tokyo and London in 1998.

He writes on the history of taste and lectures widely in England and America.

He also worked, in his role as a consultant on period sytle and manners, with Nicole Kidman and John Malkovich on Jane Campion's film of Henry James' novel 'The Portrait of a Lady'.

Reviews

[Glenn Russell · Rating 5 out of 5]

Stephen Calloway’s book on the life, art and times of English illustrator and author Aubrey Beardsley makes for captivating reading and also viewing since there are nearly 200 illustrations and photos included in its pages. Friend of Oscar Wilde, James McNeal Whistler and Max Beerbohm, Aubrey Beardsley was one immensely gifted artist and refine aesthete. Most of his artwork is black ink on white paper and picks up on decadent themes of the grotesque and erotic, drawings that must been seen to be believed and appreciated. To give readers a sense of Calloway’s writing and everything Aubrey Beardsley, here are several illustrations and quotes along with my brief comments:

“From 1893 to 1896 he made hundreds of drawings to illustrate celebrated texts, such as Oscar Wilde’s banned masterpiece ‘Salome’ and his own brilliant, bizarre, unfinished erotic tale ‘Under the Hill’.” ---------- Young Aubrey was quite the imaginative writer. If he didn’t have his extraordinary gift for drawing and only penned fiction, I suspect he could have been, particularly if he lived longer, a formidable author. Here is an excerpt from his one and only unfinished novel:

“Priapusa’s voice was full of salacious unction; she had terrible little gestures with the hands, strange movements with the shoulders, a short respiration that made surprising wrinkles in her bodice, a corrupt skin, large horny eyes, a parrot’s nose, a small loose mouth, great flaccid cheeks, and chin after chin. She was a wise person, and Venus loved her more than any of her other servants, and had a hundred pet names for her, such as, Dear Toad, Pretty Pol, Cock-robin, Dearest Lip, Touchstone, Little Cough-drop, Bijou, Buttons, Dear Heart, Dick-dock, Mrs. Manly, Little Nipper, Cochon-de-lait, Naughty-naughty, Blessed Thing, and Trump.”

“Beardsley created the scandalous imagery of, and was in a more general sense the driving force behind the pictorial side of the great decadent periodicals of the period, ‘The Yellow Book’ and ‘The Savoy’. Moving amid the most intriguing artists, writers and publishers of the 1890s, Beardsley designed or embellished a number of the most significant books of the period.” ---------- Since a picture is worth a 1000 words, many of the books Beardsley illustrated became both famous and infamous.


“Just as the singular nature of Beardsley’s genius as a draughtsman was quickly realized, so too was the recognition of his status as a key figure in the creation of a new sensibility in English and, indeed European art remarkably rapid.” --------- Now that’s a fresh vision – to not only create singular art but also to prompt an entirely new sensibility, that is, unique and heretofore unexplored avenues to experience life itself.

“Passing rapidly from style to style, he was always totally original, always shocking. Like all artists he was open to other influences, and indeed often beguiled by their possibilities, but all that he borrowed he made inalienably his own.” --------- Aubrey could not only take lessons from other styles and other cultures but once he assimilated what they had to offer artistically, he could then add his own unique visual signature. Darn it all! Tuberculosis took his life when he was only 26.


“Already steeped in surprisingly adult and demanding reading as a young child, Beardsley’s great love of books had been instantly discovered and assiduously cultivated by his kindly and imaginative Brighton schoolmaster A. W. King. By the time he left school Aubrey already had a precociously sophisticated taste of literature.” --------- Ah! What friends here on Goodreads can most definitely appreciate – an artist who fired his imagination by being a booklover. I never tire of the observation that by the power of imagination a reader of books, especially fiction, lives through many lives.

“Printed by the then still novel means of the photo line-block, most people who saw his work examined it on the printed page alone, his extraordinary images rendered starker by the mechanical means of reproduction.” ---------- Usually reproductions are a great limitation, however, as it turned out, his illustrations reproduced in books worked to the advantage of Aubrey Beardsly. Incidentally, viewing his illustrations on a computer screen is also a great enhancement. What a treat! I highly recommend this book and the art of Aubrey Beardsly to anybody who has an artistic bone in their body.

[Maria Lago · Rating 5 out of 5]

¿Quién fue Aubrey Beardsley? Ni después de haber leído este libro lo sabremos. Pero es todavía mejor: nuestra curiosidad se habrá incrementado y nuestra admiración se habrá consolidado. Histriónico, grotesco y minucioso, se me hace imposible no pensar en este frágil ilustrador flacucho como una extensión de sus monstruos y semi dioses. Fans del arte y del terror: hincadle el diente a esto, chavales.

[Rachel · Rating 5 out of 5]

The book is combination biography and discussion of Beardsley's work. There are excellent reproductions of Beardsley's drawings and a good overall representation of his oeuvre. That includes a section on his erotic work; it is only one chapter out of nine, but you should still know it is there.

[Jaimie · Rating 5 out of 5]

Placing the influence of Aubrey Beardsley's five short years on the art scene is an almost easy task, since his inspirations nad affectations are so stylistically unique. Colloway's detailed depiction of his life gives us a clear picture and explores examples of Beardsley's art by giving the context of the time period and the world-wide artistic and literary styles that Beardsley drew upon. Even the captions are great, which is what I usually complain about the most from art books!

[Prince Cad Ali Cad · Rating 3 out of 5]

Rated for the facts contained within and not the author's interpretations of them. Follows the hardworking rise of Aubrey Beardsley, illustrator extraordinaire, from childhood to his death at age 25. Decadent and devotional, Beardsley seesawed between the extremes of explicit eroticism and pious religiosity. While very much spiritually inclined, his seeming desire to shock the viewer with sensational scenes and elicit a reaction out of them brought him down a darker road. Eventually he came under the purview of a certain pornographer, Mister Smithers, whose relationship with Beardsley could best be called exploitative. Beardsley's artist Catholic friends (Marc-André Raffalovich and possibly John Gray, both of whom had the same struggles as Beardsley ) worked to combat the erotic influence, especially in Beardsley's later life. Though Beardsley struggled to make purer art until shortly before his death, he died a resolved Catholic. His last letter, written just before his death, pleadingly asked Smithers to destroy those erotic works he'd made and which were in Smithers' possession; Smithers not only declined the dying man's wishes, but sold copies of the letter to collectors.

Amazing that a man could accomplish so much, meet and count as compatriots so many great artistic figures (Oscar Wilde, Edward Burne-Jones, and others) and have so many severe struggles at such a young age.

[Grey · Rating 5 out of 5]

Fantastically compiled by Calloway, playfully leaving room and acknowledging Beardsley’s queerness and perversion. Beardsley himself is incredibly imaginative, grotesque, and prolific, interacting with contemporary and former art. Thank god tuberculosis took him before his catholicism could rob us of his work.

My one criticism that doesn’t factor into my rating is an omission of how his works have aged, particularly with his occasionally gross orientalization. Other than that, much to think about, and much of his work to continue to peruse.

[?0?0?0 · Rating 5 out of 5]

There's really only on word for this book if you like Beardsley's work: gorgeous. It's a must own, very comprehensive, and, again, utterly beautiful.

[Stephen Smith · Rating 4 out of 5]

Fascinating

[David Corvine · Rating 5 out of 5]

Delightful.

[Race]

... A book of Aubrey Beardsley art corrupted me in youth

[Fred Kohn · Rating 4 out of 5]

As a non-art person, I thought this was a well-balanced book. I suppose if I were an artist, I might have wanted to know more about Beardsley's techniques.