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Inspiration from Artists Week 36: Aubrey Beardsley and Emile Claus.
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Posted
Aubrey Beardsley (1872 - 1898) was an English illustrator and author born in Brighton into the genteel poverty of the Victorian era. He was a skilled artist and musician from an early age despite contracting tuberculosis at the age of 7, which eventually led to his early death aged just 26.
Although he had little art training his artistic career was both varied and colourful. He was best known for his humorous and very elegant black and white drawings in the Art Nouveau style. These often depicted the macabre and erotic, which both shocked and delighted late Victorian London, earning him a reputation as the most decadent artist of the ‘Naughty Nineties’ and the most controversial artist of that era.
He also produced extensive illustrations for books and magazines, including political cartoons, and was a fine caricaturist. Additionally he wrote poems and prose, the later of which were as decadent as his pictures. Despite a short career - he had been a professional artist for just six years before his untimely death - he became a leading figure in the Aesthetic Movement and his contribution to the development of Art Nouveau and poster styles was significant - his delicately interlacing forms and sinuous lines made his work important in the transition from the Aesthetic to the style of Art Nouveau.
Edited
by Jenny Harris
Posted
“The flame that burns twice as bright burns half as long”
I had the Salome print on my wall in my student days. I never realised he was so young when he died. I really admire his work, but never realised the scope of it until now. I found this image on the V&A s website, along with an interesting article on him.
https://www.vam.ac.uk/articles/aubrey-beardsley-decadence-desire#slideshow=115771&slide=0
Edited
by Andrew Roles
Elegant is the word! Very stylish and he obviously had a great imagination and the skills to deliver exceptional work. I’m surprised that he had little or no training!
I rather like this simple self portrait. Why complicate?
Posted
Some of it is the stuff of nightmares, the expressions the shapes plus the innuendo. But his patience and the detail is quite amazing.
The plant life both in some of the main paintings and in the borders is quite exquisite . Yes I wonder where he would have gone if he had lived longer.
Super choice. Thanks.
Posted
To strike a dissenting note, while I appreciate the William Morris-like tracery in some of these examples, I really don't enjoy looking at this kind of art at all. There simply isn't enough to sustain interest for my imagination (apart from what look incongruously like long-distance cyclists' legs in the last one Jenny posted), and the themes appear rather repetitive. Or perhaps they're over-familiar -- every other student at university seemed to have one of these posters about the place.
The self portrait Tessa posted is a little more interesting.
Posted
I like dissenting notes. It helps to know the classical stories on which much of his work is based - though perhaps you do, and don't find them especially captivating; what is certainly true of Beardsley's work is that it reflected little or anything of the world and times in which he lived: but then - so short a life.
Posted
I like dissenting notes. It helps to know the classical stories on which much of his work is based - though perhaps you do, and don't find them especially captivating; what is certainly true of Beardsley's work is that it reflected little or anything of the world and times in which he lived: but then - so short a life.Admittedly, when I see the lady of the lake the first thing that springs to mind is Python's "farcical aquatic ceremony", but yes, I know a little of the Tristan & Isolda story because my Archers reflex failed me once following J to Z on radio 3, and I was assaulted by unasked-for opera commentary from the Met. The music is sublime, but only if I can keep the love potions and magic lances out of my mind when I'm listening to it. I am so grateful that I do not understand enough sung German to ruin Wagner, and I will actively avoid reading about the elves and giants of the Ring Cycle... So yes, I think the classical stories can have an influence, but often not a good one. I found that rather amusing - I do speak German - after an old-fashion - and I do have a lot of trouble keeping a straight face through Lohengrin: you do have to yield to the sound, and not attend to the sense, or you can be in REAL trouble. Mein lieber Schwan is one of my favourite pieces of music, but you wouldn't want to get too hung-up on the translation .... I don't know that Beardsley is especially Wagnerian, though: there IS an element of that - a touch of the Burne-Jones too (whom I do not much like). I think of Beardsley more in connection with Oscar Wilde - which might be a touch more historically accurate too, though - who can know?
Edited
by Robert Jones, NAPA
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