“Not quite decent” genius graphic artist Aubrey Beardsley

Aubrey Vincent Beardsley (1872-1898) was an English graphic artist who was called by his contemporaries “the black diamond of Art Nouveau” and “the singer of paradisiacal sin”, and these are not all the epithets that fell to his lot. He was often epathetic to the prim English, and they, although they considered him an artist “not quite decent” still paid tribute to the ability to reflect the essence of the illustrated work in his laconic and surprisingly accurate drawings. We will talk about the life and work of Aubrey Beardsley in this article.

Beardsley is a true prodigy. Already at the age of four, he was fluent in reading books in English and French, to which later added a few works of ancient and Latin poets, of course, in the original. At the age of 11, he was already composing poetry as well as an adult poet and writing music as a real composer. He gave concerts in the school where he studied, and they were attended by many spectators, not only schoolchildren and teachers, but also theater critics.

Black cape

Aubrey graduated from Westminster School of Art in 3 months, because he realized that he has a very short life expectancy, and therefore time to study should not be lost, otherwise you will not have time for anything. He had hereditary tuberculosis, which at the time was considered a real sentence. And Beardsley lived to the fullest, as if tomorrow will never come, which was reflected in his work - the images created by the artist are often ephemeral, resembling ghosts that came to life, quite consistent with the fashionable at the time aesthetics of decadence.

Cover design for John Davidson's plays

However, he could not afford much, and therefore often had to limit himself to reading, as the most harmless occupation in his illness. Perhaps that is why he excelled in illustration - to create a memorable graphic image of the hero of any literary work, you must necessarily read it.

Salome with the head of John the Baptist.

Beardsley drew illustrations for Edgar Poe's detectives, Aristophanes' philosophical works, Oscar Wilde's novels, which got him into a lot of trouble because the moral zealots suspected him of unconventional orientation, and even for the works of Dostoevsky. He himself wrote poems and plays, but soon orders for his graphic works became so numerous that there was no time left for literary works.

The mask of the red death

But very successful in graphics, he managed to create a distinctive manner, where Beardsley took much of the world's cultural heritage. Laconicity and clarity of drawing, characteristic of Japanese ukiyo-e prints combined with some features of Botticelli's works, many of the subjects of his prints were reminiscent of the paintings of the Pre-Raphaelites, and the sophistication and ease of attitude to life referred to the work of Antoine Watteau. “How important the line is now. The old masters understood this perfectly well, today's artists are interested only in color” - wrote Beardsley.

The lady with the monkey

But about the personal life of Beardsley almost nothing is known. Those familiar with his work considered the artist at least a dock in all sorts of love affairs. But there is no solid evidence of this. But it is known that he often communicated with writers Oscar Wilde, John Gray, Pierre Louis and was his own in their “blue party”.

Fruit servers

However, it is possible that they were simply friendship and professional interests, although they willingly came to visit him and lingered in his living room, the walls of which were decorated with obscene Japanese prints shunga. In general, who could understand them, the London intellectuals.

Venus between the gods

However, the various very impressive physiological details in some of Beardsley's engravings may well be explained by his illness. Beardsley wanted to know everything about it, and at a young age studied medical treatises, which showed in great detail the whole physiology of man. He was impressed by the drawings he saw, and afterwards, in a somewhat exaggerated and modified form, he depicted them in his illustrations.

Oriental concubine

After school Beardsley worked for three years as a junior clerk in an insurance company, receiving a paltry salary. Subsequently, his superiors increased it by 10 pounds and that only because of sympathy for the poor health of Aubrey. Tired of tedious business writing, Aubrey found an outlet in drawing and scratched out many fields of working documents with his drawings and caricatures. However, his coworkers and superiors liked them, so the young clerk's hobby was ignored.

Powderpuff

In 1894 Beardsley became art editor of the magazine “The Yellow Book”, which often printed works of Oscar Wilde and other writers, characterized by too free for Victorian England views on relationships. This played a cruel trick on Beardsley.

The cover of Savoy magazine

Когда Оскара Уайльда арестовали, он захватил с собой роман Пьера Луиса «Афродита», который от любопытных глаз спрятал под жёлтой обложкой. Журналист, писавший об этом случае, написал вместо «a yellow book» — книга в жёлтой обложке, «the yellow book» — название журнала, где работал Бердслей. В итоге журнал закрыли, а Обри стали подозревать в нестандартной ориентации.

Platonic mourning

Beardsley was a true perfectionist in his work, and would often erase his pencil sketches on the same piece of paper many times until he arrived at the desired result. So the apparent lightness of the drawing is the result of hard exhausting labor. By the way, many illustrations he made in two versions: the original and taking into account the strict censorship, which went to print. Although no censorship did not prevent the graphic artist to draw a series of not the most modest drawings about Lysistrata.

However, before his death - unfortunately, Beardsley lived only 25 years, he became a zealous Catholic and decided to destroy all his obscene drawings, hoping that so God will give him the opportunity to live at least one extra year. But his friends did not destroy the drawings, believing that there is no great sin in creativity, especially when it comes to real works of art, which can be attributed to almost all of Beardsley's illustrations.

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