Beardsley Before Lockdown...

The long-awaited Aubrey Beardsley exhibition at the Musée d’Orsay was cancelled during the first lockdown, so I had no intention of missing it when it opened in mid-October, having been on show in the Tate Britain over the summer. I duly went to Paris the day before the second national lockdown with great expectations.

Whilst there had been no major Beardsley exhibition in England for over 50 years, this was apparently the first time his work has been presented to the French public. However the d’Orsay exhibition turned out to be a greatly scaled-down version of the Tate’s, so much so that I could not help but feel disappointed, and got back home wondering if might somehow have actually overlooked an exhibition room. Perhaps the decision to show this reduced collection was down to COVID restrictions, but ultimately I felt rather short-changed and I think the average uninitiated French visitor must have been left a little bemused, despite there being a number of beautiful pieces on show. To my knowledge, there was no in-depth coverage of the exhibition in any of the mainstream French art revues which meant that curiosity here was not piqued. All in all, without wishing to be ungrateful or belittling, this seems to have been a missed opportunity to bring Beardsley to French public – after all he died here just before the turn of the century (Menton 1898).

In the Musée d’Orsay there were nevertheless a number of the Beardsley pen-and-ink illustrations for which he was so famous, already during his own short life but especially far later in the 20th century. His distinctive aesthetic style and clever exploration of the themes of sexuality and death , and notions of beauty and the grotesque, all displayed in delicately executed images met with appreciation in the psychedelic Sixties. Beardsley images were often reproduced and replicated in the coolest posters, album covers etc of the time. Yet, the most famous pieces that featured in the ‘Boudoir’ section at the Tate this summer were missing here in the autumn. Furthermore, there seemed to be artist references that were left ‘floating’, without concrete explanation or example in the descriptions. For instance, I am not sure how familiar the average Continental visitor is with the work of the Pre-Raphaelite Edward Burne Jones, for instance. This Birmingham artist, whose paintings and stained-glass windows had such a formative influence on the young Aubrey Beardsley, is brushed over here and yet it would have been helpful to be able to compare styles and themes. The Brummie artist inspired in him an apparent interest in Greek mythology and indeed, the languid expressions and ethereal forms of his early characters can easily be traced back to Burne Jones. The latter had been so impressed by Beardsley’s work that he advised the young man to study at the evening classes in order to become a professional draughtsman.

I do not know what Burne Jones thought of the later Beardsley style, but the first moves away from the typical saccharine medieval/mythological themes soon became apparent in Beardsley’s first major work – pieces of which were on display here. It was interesting to be able to study up close the drawing and details one of these - How King Arthur Saw The Questing Beast – part of one of his first commissions. In his illustratation of Malory’s version of the legend of King Arthur, commissioned by the London publisher Joseph Dent, in 1893, Beardsley proceeded to incorporate his own, unique touches into the work. Indeed, in the Morte d’Arthur sequence of drawings, he soon grew tired of the chivalric themes with their virtuous ladies and daring knights, and therefore wove in small details that created another mood – edgy, ironic or just plain incongruous. In The Questing Beast, our eyes are lead from the beastly monster towards the strutting Pan along with the bizarre schoolboy-sketch spider and male genitalia that decorate the paper, like the doodles of a bored, precocious pupil. At this point I was very glad for the relatively small amount of visitors in the exhibition as I was not obliged to stand at a distance to look at these pieces. These all seem to reveal a certain defiant streak in Beardsley that ran through much of his life work, as he incorporated ‘inappropriate’ elements – generally of a lewd nature - into his images, knowing that these would obviously go against the grain of Victorian morality. It has been suggested that even Beardsley’s distinctively elegant emblem signature was in fact a reference to the phallic form. Apparently his earlier publishers would be duty-bound to scrutinize these pieces for offending, provocative detail, in order to render these more acceptable to public taste – asking Beardsley to water down the more shocking elements or even to resort to the use of a fig leaf ! John Lane, publisher of Oscar Wilde’s Salomé, for which Beardsley provided the illustrations, remarked that it was necessary to vet the work before publication « One had, so to speak, to place his drawings under a microscope, and look at them upside down ».

Alongside this use of quirky detail, Beardsley used highly sophisticated decorative motifs to frame the central images of the commissioned work, ultimately drawing attention from these Arthurian themes towards the mastery of artwork surrounding these. The visitors to the exhibition – me included – all peered at the intricate designs that come into their own in the Arthur series with their incredibly striking beauty. Prior to this exhibition, I had never noticed just how marvellous Beardsley’s decorative work was, but with the richly-illustrated chapter headings and tailpieces for Le Morte d’Arthur and another publication – Les Bons Mots and Grotesques – I was able to see how incredible these are. The intricacy and perfection of these pieces is made all the more incredible since virtually nothing is known of Beardsley’s work practices and exécution techniques… The Dent commissions enabled Beardsley to earn enough to live for two years, leave the office clerk position he so hated and devote himself to his art. He was still in his very early 20s at the time.

As much as Beardsley is unique, he was very much a product of this time. His art springs from the fin-de-siècle Decadent mood as the Victorian era drew to an end but still maintained a strangle hold on free expression of sentiments, sexuality and the ‘unsanitized self’. Key to this Decadent mood was the novel by French author Joris-Karl Huysmans – A Rebours (Against Nature) – with its references to the art of Gustave Moreau and its significant influence on Oscar Wilde, and by association Beardsley too. Beardsley turned to an aesthetic vision that prefered the artificial to the natural, or better still the natural that seemed to replicate art and artifice in a rather unsettling manner – hence the fascination with peacock feathers, exotic orchids and the like. Beardsley was quite the dandy- aesthete – a fleur du mal – and used staged beauty as a device to ward off fate ; Man’s condition at the mercy of Mother Nature. Elegance and extreme ornateness were sought and revered as a stand against Nature, whilst perversity and the grotesque were extensions of this.

Beardsley claimed « If I am not grotesque, I am nothing. » using it and caricature as the ultimate defiance of a wholesome, natural state. He was referred to, rather scathingly, by Oscar Wilde as « the most monstrous of orchids ». Having been diagnosed as having tuberculousis, at the age of seven, Beardsley certainly knew how cruel Nature could be and understood that his life would indeed be short. Driven to produce art at a prolific rate, he left a legacy of hundreds of works behind him and the 1890s in London was heavily influenced by what critic Max Beerbohm called the « Beardsley period ». Again, I wished that the exhibition room had been able to let the visitors get a sense of that fin-de-siècle mood and aesthetic style so that we could see Beardsley’s art in its context. Having seen the incredible collection of Art Nouveau furniture and ornamentation at the Musée d’Orsay, it seems a shame that some pieces were not used to create a rather more immersive experience of Beardsley.

Advances in the printing process and publishing itself towards the end of the century not only meant that Beardsley’s art became well-known in a short period of time but also influenced his style and production. Working exclusively in pen and ink, his illustrations could be reproduced using photomechanical line-block printing rather than William Morris’ more costly Kelmscott Press process. Beardsley promptly adapted his artistic approach to benefit from the effects this new reproduction technique offered, leading towards his distinctive bold, linear work. He himself declared that he took « no notice of shadows », and the resulting art often offers a striking, flattened plane, with detailed figures set against empty backgrounds reminiscent of the Japanese woodblock prints (Ukiyo-e) or patterned, abstract decorative designs, emphasising the floral, with the undulating lines and arabesque forms that were to be typical of the Art Nouveau movement. In 1893, Beardsley wrote about his « entirely new method of drawing and composition, something suggestive of Japan… » and he went on to adopt the tall, narrow form of « Japanesque » image, inspired by the traditional kakemono scrolls. Indeed the influence of Japanese aesthetics and artistic technique on Western art was visible everywhere in late 19th century England. Beardsley had already seen one of the finest examples of Anglo-Japanese art ; Whistler’s renowned Peacock Room. However, Beardsley took these sources of inspiration to a whole other level, as he used the stark black and white contrasts, dark Decadent themes and Art Nouveau forms of which his illustrations to Oscar Wilde’s work Salomé (1893) are probably the best known. However, his illustration to the medieval legend, Virgilius the Sorcerer is another fine example as the protagonist is curiously and anachronistically dressed in a voluminous kimono !

Furthermore, Beardsley lived at a pivotal moment in the perception and propagation of illustrated work. Having visited Paris in 1892, he had been struck by the use of large street posters for advertising purposes – les affiches – as an urban art form that was respected in its own right. He had also seen Toulouse-Lautrec’s poster for the Divan Japonais, and when the first British exhibition of posters later took place in London, 1894, works by Beardsley were displayed next to those of the founders of this modern art form ; Toulouse-Lautrec and Jules Chéret. His poster to advertise the play, A Comedy of Sighs, was remarked upon in an edition of Punch « Ave a new poster ». Indeed, the poster suited Beardsley’s vision of illustration as a form of art that did not need to justify its existence or act as "handmaid of literature". He was heralded as « the new illustrator » by artist and author Joseph Pennell, who wrote the introduction to The Studio - an illustrated magazine of fine and applied art that sought to end the division between fine and applied art. Beardsley not only contributed to several issues of The Studio but also designed covers too.

Already in his illustrations, it had been remarked that the images did not always entirely correspond to the text, but for Beardsley his was no stylistic error ; on the contrary, it was desirable. This was perhaps also a necessity for him as he remarked « However much I may admire a piece of literary work, the moment I am about to illustrate it I am seized with an instinctive loathing to the cause of my woe. » The role and status of text and image were further explored in the literary periodical The Yellow Book, founded in 1894, for which Beardsley acted as editor. In this daring new publication – yellow as an allusion to illicit French text - notably Huysman’s Decadent novel A Rebours – words and images were to be of equal worth and could be independant of each other. With its shocking, ‘immoral’ themes and illustrations, it is perhaps not surprising that The Yellow Book did not meet with unanimous approval.

Therefore when the furore broke out following Wilde’s sentencing for gross indecency, Beardsley’s artistic association with the writer meant that his name and reputation were sullied too, given the rigid Victorian morality of the time. Beardsley was promptly dismissed as editor of The Yellow Book, and facing financial hardship, left for Dieppe in France. It was there that he met the publisher Leonard Smithers, and that he was to embark on the last stylistic phase of his artistic career and final stage of his short life. Smithers wished to found a new magazine that would rival The Yellow Book, with Beardsley acting as art editor. The subsequent magazine – The Savoy - was launched in 1896 and under Smithers’ control would « publish what all the others are afraid to touch ». Erotic prints of Japanese origin and licentious Ancient Greek vase painting were considered too indecent to be marketed in a traditional manner and could therefore only be acquired through private subscription to the magazine. Beardsley met this demand by producing explicit work that was inspired by classical texts. He illustrated the Ancient Greek erotic comedy, Lysistrata, by Aristophanes and Juvenal’s Sixth Satire. Sadly, the famous drawings from these collections were not present in the Paris exhibition ! I remember coming across these as a child and being most shocked, but surely the French public would have able to take these in their stride ? Apparently not… I would love to include one here, but probably not a good idea.

As Beardsley’s health deteriorated due to the ravages of consumption his themes became more extreme and controversial, yet their execution became increasingly detailed, with lavish depictions of clothing, hairpieces and drapery , largely inspired by the French Rococo and 18th century literature – his illustrations to Alexander Pope’s The Rape of the Lock being the most well-known. He refered to these intricate pieces as his « embroideries » and typical of this late style is L’Abbé, the drawing selected by the Musée d’Orsay for the exhibition poster. Beardsley continued to include the sexual allusions and satirical reflections on society for which he was renowned and which had earned him the title Aubrey Beardsley-Weirdsley from Punch magazine. The elegance of this late work, and sophistication of its style, interwoven with elements of the perverse and grotesque were to influence the art of the Irish stained-glass artist and book illustrator, Harry Clarke (1889-1931). In his final months of his life, Beardsley converted to the Catholic faith and the last image we see of the artist in the exhibition is a photograph taken in the hotel at Menton in 1898, surrounded by reproductions of Mantegna’s art. He seems small and distant, unlike the rather self-aware, dandified youth seen in the portrait photographs on display, as if he had already relinquished his defiant position in society and the art world. Apparently he had written to Smithers asking for the destruction of all his « obscene drawings », a request that the publisher chose to ignore – fortunately for us.

And so the exhibition ended, and whilst I was pleased to have seen Beardsley’s work at close quarters, I felt as if this particular show had not done the artist justice at all. Since Beardsley’s art was largely made for reproduction, surely prints of the missing originals could have been used to map out his aesthetic evolution and the influence he had on other illustrators ? All in all, I think it would have been preferable to hold out for a complete exhibition rather than this one. However, I will return for a second visit, once the second lockdown is over, just in case I did actually miss something the first time. But this experience did make me consider how exhibitions are set up and how they too could evolve over time. Imagine if Beardsley’s work could be set alongside that of the Irish artist Harry Clarke ? What an exhibition that would be…

The Paintings of Jean Marrel...Nature in Art, Art in Nature...

While visiting the town of Troyes in the Champagne-Ardenne region at the beginning of July, I noticed a poster for an art exhibition that literally made me stop dead in my tracks. I often see things that make me pause, but the total stand-still moments are a little rarer. The vivid colours and evocative forms in the poster reproduction of the plant painting caught my attention straight away.

I was very pleased to see that the exhibition was still being held at the Maison du Boulanger, one of the many Medieval buildings in the heart of the old town. Unfortunately, the opening hours being incompatible with my timetable, I wasn’t able to see the amazing work of the artist in question; Jean Marrel.

To say that I was disappointed is an understatement, but I vowed there and then that I would come back before the end of the month just before the final days of the exhibition… That project lost a little momentum as I went back to England, but then I resolved to return to Troyes as soon as I got back to Reims. And indeed, this was a trip that I certainly did not regret, despite a wait of 6 hours for the exhibition opening (3pm)!

Troyes is a town simply full of the most incredible churches, edifices and museums, whilst the whole of its historical centre is crisscrossed by streets and meandering alleys composed of buildings that date back to the Middle Ages.

Suffice it to say that I had no trouble passing the intervening hours…

With its typical colombage troyen, the Maison du Boulanger is a suitable setting for any exhibition; calm and peaceful, with its centuries-old wooden beams creating a unique atmosphere.

Access to the first floor is at the back of the building, via a wooden staircase that overlooks a tranquil courtyard and leads onto the subdued lighting of rooms illuminated in this case by the colour of these works.

Jonchée 3 - Jean Marrel - Exhibition at the Maison du Boulanger - Troyes

The poster that so mesmerized me on my first encounter was but one of this artist’s many studies of floral and vegetal forms to be seen at the Maison du Boulanger. More of Jean Marrel's work can, of course, be seen on his site (www.jean-marrel.fr).

Most of the photos below in this post are details of the full paintings. As the original works themselves are often quite large, that magical quality is magnified all the more....

The imposing forms of exotic amaryllis and iris lead onto flurries of nasturtium, the ‘stencilled’ starkness of flowering courgette, the dense bodies of ripe figs and the dramatic stalks, leaves and petals of other more unassuming plant types. All of these seem to vie for your attention; their bold contours and colours drawing you in. At this point, you are caught by a strange quality.

Deux Iris - Jean Marrel

Indeed, while these works are realistic in that you can ‘sense’ the vital essence of each plant, this is no slavish, faithful reproduction of the each detail. However, this is no impressionist approach either; it goes beyond a fleeting impression of vitality.

Fleurs de Courgette - Jean Marrel

While I could not appreciate this quality from the street poster alone, I was able to 'live' it in the exhibition. Be it the spindly roots of a radish plant or beet; the twisted, convoluted leaves of garlic; the radiating stalks of an umbel; the bulbous forms of quince fruit or the pitted skin of a lemon, each study makes you ‘feel’ the life of the subject both from a distance and at close quarters.

Detail of Le Bal des Capucins - Jean Marrel

Viewed from afar, the essential shape of each subject with its defining characteristics is rendered. This is just as valid for the plant studies as for those of the farmyard chickens, for example. Sadly, the latter were not part of the exhibition, but can be seen on the artist’s site.

Jean Marrel

As you will see there, Jean Marrel’s paintings of hens truly capture the busy, bossy, no-nonsense aspect unique to such birds, intent on going about their business, head cocked, feet strutting… and yet without a single discernable feather!

Jean Marrel

Apparently the artist does not seek to represent a 3-dimensional reality that is reliant on perspective and detail, but instead leans towards a more 2-dimensional approach that recreates the vital essence of the subject, be that flora or fauna.

In some ways this reminded me a little of the Japanese woodblock art that Baudelaire termed “the Asian image d’Epinal technique” with its evocative forms and blocks of colour.

However, that would not be sufficient to fully describe the studies here.

Capucins - Jean Marrel.

Apparently, Jean Marrel frequently presses his plants and flowers to produce a 2D view that he then recreates on a given medium. Dramatic contours, sinuous lines and bizarre shapes are captured in the flattened version of the original subject, but this process also releases a new energy and creates new forms that may lead onto other interpretations.

Far from being caught prisoner on canvas, with their life suspended, the subjects seem to germinate and metamorphose. They indeed grow outward, with the rustle of intertwining shoots and leaves, a flourish of petals that float and dance and often seem to assume the billowing outlines of human forms or the flight of birds. Rather than a dull study of nature morte, these paintings ultimately have a poetic force of their own, like a form of static electricity that catches you unawares.

Ciel - Jean Marrel

Although the English term, 'still life', is more appropriate than the French nature morte, it still falls short as a description of this work…. This is no trompe-l’oeil to show the transience, futility and Vanity of our existence. Indeed, this deceptive ‘flat’ approach produces a depth that serves to emphasize the hidden existence of all things in the natural world and their gradual growth and transformation towards new forms and movements.

Detail Amaryllis - Jean Marrel

Central to this process of contemplation and recreation, is the actual technical aspects of the creative process. Jean Marrel’s work does not simply create an overall image of vitality at a distance, which dissolves into a seemingly haphazard group of paint strokes and layers when seen up close. Indeed, here the painting technique become an essential part of the subjects’ vitality.

Amaryllis - Jean Marrel

The paint work and its reworking, the contrasting textures, effects and responses of the materials used, are at the heart of this organic process of creation, and thus seem to become a living part of the organism studied. In this manner, the rough surface acquired by several applications of paint or from scraping, scratching or worrying the paint layers, may either be harnessed to reflect the essential vitality of a living form, or may actually ‘lead’ the artist in his design.

Detail of Amaryllis - Jean Marrel

Rugged edges followed by smoother patches may represent silky petals with their strange veins and markings; ridges may become essential in the portrayal of stalks; cracking, spotting and stress may highlight leaves, seeds and pods… Likewise, the texture of the paint itself seems to emphasise the vitality of the colours employed. In this way, smooth liquid paint seems to bring out the fluid vibrancy of certain tones; chalky mediums highlight contrasting colours; dull milky layers of paint underline the enameled shine of other areas. It goes without saying that the colours themselves are just beautiful…

Detail Amaryllis - Jean Marrel

The whole of this approach creates an art that I thought was really unique and I spent quite some time looking at these works, from near and afar, appreciating their skill. These works make the viewer ‘feel’ the vital tension within, and the life force that radiates out. The whole visual experience stimulates other senses; in a strange form of synaesthesia, I suppose. As I love some of the weirdly beautiful forms to be found in the plant world, precisely for this same quality, this exhibition was really interesting.

Physalis (photo)

Jean Marrel’s art seems to have no dark undertones. However, the hidden vitality of his subjects, their capacity to assume almost human forms and above all the disconcerting ability of the art to mimic life and the organic living process reminded me a little of the novel by the fin-de-siècle writer J.-K. Huysmans (1848-1907) – A Rebours – which was published in 1884. It must be said that the morbid, extreme aestheticism and the premise of the supremacy of cold artifice over Nature of Huysman’s writing finds no trace in the paintings of Jean Marrel; quite the contrary.

Detail of Jonchée 3 - Jean Marrel

Nevertheless, Against Nature (the English title) is a novel well worth reading, with the ultimate message that you cannot go against the current of the life forces of Nature or those of (the Catholic) faith; these will all inevitably overpower you. The story focuses on the withdrawal from bourgeois society of its protagonist, Des Esseintes, into a world of Decadence. This universe of mystical symbolism, aesthetic and intellectual (over)stimulation eventually implodes, leading the anti-hero to flee this stifling, bewelled anti-life…

Below is part of the description of the exotic plants Des Esseintes has chosen precisely for their ability to go ‘against nature’.

This wonderful art had held him entranced for a long while, but now he was dreaming of another experiment. He wished to go one step beyond. Instead of artificial flowers imitating  real flowers, natural flowers should mimic the artificial ones.

He directed his ideas to this end and had not to seek long or go far, since his house lay in the  very heart of a famous horticultural region. He visited the conservatories of the Avenue de Chatillon and of the Aunay valley, and returned exhausted, his purse empty, astonished at the strange forms of vegetation he had seen, thinking of nothing but the species he had acquired and continually haunted by memories of magnificent and fantastic plants.

The flowers came several days later.

Des Esseintes holding a list in his hands, verified each one of his purchases. The gardeners from their wagons brought a collection of caladiums which sustained enormous heartshaped leaves on turgid hairy stalks; while preserving an air of relationship with its neighbor, no one leaf repeated the same pattern.

Others were equally extraordinary. The roses like the Virginale seemed cut out of varnished cloth or oil-silks; the white ones, like the Albano, appeared to have been cut out of an ox's transparent pleura, or the diaphanous bladder of a pig. Some, particularly the Madame Mame, imitated zinc and parodied pieces of stamped metal having a hue of emperor green, stained by drops of oil paint and by spots of white and red lead; others like the Bosphorous, gave the illusion of a starched calico in crimson and myrtle green; still others, like the Aurora Borealis, displayed leaves having the color of raw meat, streaked with purple sides, violet fibrils, tumefied leaves from which oozed blue wine and blood....

As I said, this decadent vision of Nature is far removed from the world view that sems to emerge through Jean Marrel’s work. The artist here appears to view Nature as a means to embark on an almost spiritual quest of vitality, using art to embrace life in all its changing forms.

Again, if you want to see the 'real thing', just check out those chickens!

Aubrey Beardsley...Brighton's blighted beautiful flower.

Before my life was completely taken over by work I went to the Musée d'Orsay, Paris, to see  Beauté, Morale et Volupté dans l'Angleterre d'Oscar Wilde. This is, in fact, the French run of the Victoria and Albert Museum's exhibition The Cult of Beauty : the Aesthetic Movement 1860-1900, a title that I thought was more appropriate than the French one, I have to say! 

Burne-Jones - Lucretia - 1867

As to be expected, there were not just paintings and drawings but also furniture, ceramics, jewellery, clothing and accessories. Many of these felt so familiar to me; I grew up with images of them, grew out of them, only to rediscover and reappraise them at a later age, with due respect and a feeling of great fondness, if that's the correct term. 

Several works of Edward Burne-Jones (1833-1898), one the most influential artists of the latter part of the 19th century, can be seen in the Birmingham Museum and Art Gallery. Influenced by the last phase of the Pre-Raphaelite Movement Burne-Jones was also one of the leading figures of the Aesthetic Movement which would have an impact on the art of the 20th century.

I saw Burne-Jones' work and that of many others in Birmingham as a child, fascinated by all that glorious detail, the ethereal atmosphere and then the whole sensation of visiting the lofty museum itself.

Not just a painter, Burne-Jones also explored other art forms and crafts.

Burne-Jones - King Cophetua and the Beggar Maid -1884

He worked with William Morris (1834-1896) on a wide range of decorative arts and was a founding partner in Morris, Marshall, Falkner and Company. This company was based on the precepts of the Arts and Crafts Movement which was initially led by Morris and largely inspired by the writings of critic John Ruskin and the Pre-Raphaelite Brotherhood.

William Morris - Woodpecker Tapestry - 1885

 The movement harped back to the purer aesthetics and morality of an idealized Medieval era and deplored the contemporary reign of mechanization in art, society and urban life alike. Artists, working in guilds, sought to produce handmade crafts of beauty and utility, which elevated artist and public to a moral pitch, leaving behind the vulgar manufacture of art and artifacts en masse and the resulting social ills that had come to symbolize late Victorian England. 

 

In the final decade of the 19^th century Burne-Jones was at the height of his success, not only appreciated in England, but on the Continent too. King Cophetua and the Beggar girl won a medal at the Exposition Universelle in Paris, 1889, acclaimed by artists such as Gustave Moreau and Puvis de Chavannes as an anti-dote to material vulgarity exemplified by the Eiffel Tower and the grey industrial streets of Burne-Jones’ native Birmingham. All his work was infused with the same ethereal quality, much of it departing from Rossetti’s initial influence, and that of the other Pre-Raphaelites in order to find its own aesthetic goals, a retreat, or parallel reality “I mean by a picture a beautiful, romantic dream of something that never was, never will be”… Unlike the artists who had inspired him in his formative years, Burne-Jones developed an approach that sought to incite a sensual response rather than one based on morality, purity or intellect. The notion of ‘art for art’s sake took precedence over any moral, social or narrative purpose.

 It was in Brighton that a singular young artist was to encounter, and absorb the rich, other-worldly aspect of Burne-Jones’ work – in the form of his stained-glass windows visible in the church that was avidly attended. This aesthetic encounter was to be further consolidated by a visit that the young man in question paid on Burne-Jones at his summer home in Fulham. It is said that during this visit the 18-year-old met Oscar Wilde, sparking an ill-fated association of names that was to lead to the unsuspecting downfall –social and professional ostracisation - of the young artist, Aubrey Beardsley. 

In the summer of 1891, Beardsley was still very much the precious, gifted individual he had been as a child, blighted by ill health but displaying a marked artistic talent and particular panache. Like the Brontë children before him, Beardsley and his sister Mabel had been fascinated by the theatre – performance and script. The children would prepare their own productions, drawing up and acting out their plays, with Aubrey designing the posters. Their mother encouraged this creativity, and actively heightened their interest in music and literature. Seriously ill, Aubrey was unable to attend school for two years yet against all odds perhaps he regained his strength and sufficient health to return to formal education again. However tuberculosis had been declared and would cast a shadow over his short life, leading its victim to live at a feverish pitch of creativity. 

Like Edvard Munch, Beardsley’s existence was watched over by “black angels, who haunted life from cradle to grave”. The very nature of Brighton itself appears to have been fertile ground for this precocious young man. The eclectic aspect of the town with its Regency excesses, the extravagant orientalism of King George IV’s Royal Pavilion and a certain tolerance that reigned may have influenced Aubrey’s aesthetics and world view. From the teenager who illustrated his favourite books, themselves considered to be singular or shocking in the extreme – namely Madame Bovary and Manon Lescaut –slowly emerged an ephemeral flower or “monstrous orchid” as Oscar Wilde would later say. 

Burne-Jones - The Last Sleep of Arthur - 1880's

Burne-Jones -David

Initially working in an architect’s office, followed by a clerical post, Beardsley was encouraged to leave such employment in order to devote himself to his art. Burne-Jones incited him to attend classes in the Westminster School of Art. Despite being dogged by what he termed “my vile constitution”, Beardsley quickly established himself as a competent illustrator, principally in the pen-and-ink medium. Whilst William Morris did not find the young man’s art aesthetically pleasing, he did recognize Beardsley’s talent during an encounter in 1892. 

Morris’ admiration, soured by distaste, was fully put to the test when Beardsley carried out his first major commission on a theme that had been dear to the Pre-Raphaelites and their contemporaries –  Medieval times and Arthurian Romance. 

Commissioned by J.M Dent to illustrate Thomas Malory’s Le Morte d’Arthur in 1892, Beardsley was to make his name at a young age and forge his reputation as a singular figure –ready to flout the norms and convention through style, subject matter and his own personality. Already fully aware of his own talent, the young man considered his publisher Dent to be a “lucky dog” to have an artist such as himself; Dent meanwhile fully recognized the genius of Beardsley yet did not hesitate to label him as “weird”.

Aubrey Beardsley - Le morte d'Arthur

 Beardsley himself acknowledged that Morris was displeased by his interpretation of the Morte d’Arthur since this had been executed in his own, unique manner, rather than churning out a “mere imitation of the same old stuff”. The provocative nature of Beardsley is made apparent in this work, all the more outrageous since this was, after all, his first commission. These early images bear sexual allusions, barely hidden in the detail of the illustration, coinciding with an almost immature fascination with varying forms of his own signature. In this way, the precocious Beardsley seemed to be leaving his own ironic mark, like a defiant teenager, on artistic territory which had previously been reserved for established older artists. Whilst his first human figures seem to mirror the physique that Burne-Jones perfected – namely the noble profile, distinctive jaw line, aquiline nose, expressive eyes, flowing locks and languid bodies, the works gradually come to parody this. His style developed over the considerable amount of time required to execute the series of illustration for Dent’s commission and the Beardsley characters seemed to become caricatures of Burne-Jones’. 

 

Indeed, with their over-prominent features, abundant, serpentine hair and exaggerated poses the Beardsley characters gave rise to art that was ambiguous in meaning, in every sense of the word. Increasingly testing other styles and techniques and influenced by Japanese art Beardsley’s work seemed to indulge in such stylistic experimentation often to the extent that the art seemed to detach itself from the narrative of the story. His work also demonstrated little desire to be a slavish reproduction of reality, as he indulged in glorious decorative designs, floral motifs and patterns that had as much importance in his drawings as any human form. 

Beardsley - Le Morte d'Arthur

Technically, his work was perfect in execution and the linear approach of stark black and white lent itself perfectly to the new mass production facilities of this industrial age. Publishers’ demand for illustrated book covers, book plates and decorative chapter headings likewise coincided with Beardsley’s creative years… However, much of his working technique remains unknown since he worked alone, and did not divulge the intricacies of his working manner. While some works experimented with minimal lines, creating a dramatic block effect, others bore complicated line work of great detail and precision –not all of which was performed with pen, since some relied on fine linear brushwork for execution.

Gradually Beardsley gave free rein to the themes that had fascinated him since childhood, creating a potent mix that drew admiration and disdain in equal measure. From the mischievous schoolboy gleefully hiding ‘naughty’ symbols he went on to blatantly emphasize the ritual, the bizarre, the grotesque and the sexual; in short, his aesthetic fetishes. Proclaiming to see life in this manner… " see everything in a grotesque way… all seem weird and strange to me"… he made a cult of his visions.

 Like the French novelist Proust, the image of the child transfixed by the rituals and trappings of the world of adults is powerful. The sick boy, peering out from what appears to be his parents’ vast, heavily veiled bed, seems entranced by the beauty and taboo of what he sees, thrilled to be occupying this ‘grown-up’ place which would normally be denied him. 

 Similarily, dressing tables with all their mysterious paraphernalia become places of worship, like altars with religious accoutrements destined for the cult of the Madonna/Mother. As the child grows up this fascination spills over into all female attire, but above all the elegant shoes and lacy, flounced clothing that adorn figures, frequently grotesque, portrayed in louche situations and poses that seem to mock these same elegant details. 

The duality of the ornate and beautiful set against the blunt and ugly creates a tension in the work, like the black and white ink work itself and was perhaps a source of eroticism for the artist. For the writer Brigid Brophy Beardsley’s eroticism bears the essence believed by Freud to define the sexuality of children - a polymorphic perversity. The child is fascinated by the erotic, yet too young and passive, and here too ill to be anything but a voyeuristic figure. 

Beardsley’s life was ruled and regulated by extremes and contradictions on almost every level, much of which stemmed from the family dynamics and his consumptive state of health. Marrying below her social standing, Aubrey’s mother, Ellen, soon discovered her husband to be professionally and financially inadequate, playing a rather peripheral role in the children’s upbringing and education. Cultivated and spiritual, Ellen was in contrast with the uneducated, earthier Vincent and in this misalliance it was certainly Mrs Beardsley who had to wear the trousers. In Aubrey’s spirit her image was central; nurturer of artistic talent, religiously fervent “sermon taster”, saintly nurse, devoted comforter and yet jailor too, keeping him safely confined indoors. Not surprisingly, Beardsley enfant-adult was attracted yet repulsed by the mother figure; Madonna, mistress, matriarch.

Messalina

His study of Messalina seems to attest to this – a mother figure who defies femininity with her flat-footed gait, down-turned mouth and hefty, unyielding manner. Messalina is just as fearsome as the other deadly female who would herald Beardsley’s success and indirectly bring about his downfall; Salome.

The irony in Beardsley’s life was perhaps at its bitterest regarding the few years he actually had to live… Here, indeed was a young man supposed to be in the prime of his life yet obliged to live the confined existence of an old dying man; a dandified aesthete, surrounded by the ornate yet fully aware of the bare, cold mask of death ever-present just below the decorative surface of life. Here was an individual who, like many sufferers of tuberculosis, at that period at least, had a heightened sensuality and sexuality, and was drawn to the erotic yet perhaps himself unable to engage in any concrete form of sexual intercourse. Nevertheless the notion that the young man was asexual is surely refuted by a reference in one of his letters to imposed chastity “a habit…but one which has never become a taste”. Beardsley was thus the man whose sexual orientations were never fully known, yet whose ambiguous sexuality gave rise to much obsessive speculation leading to a final, merciless condemnation due to his brief professional tie to a well-known homosexual.

Beardsley - Iokanaan

Like Icarus’ golden ascent, Beardsley’s sudden rise to fame would lead to an equally precipitous demise, a trajectory mirrored by an exalted life that crashed to earth with his premature death. Yet in spite of a frequently solitary, sickly existence wherein he invariably spent large periods of time bed-bound in his room Beardsley did have friends and acquaintances to whom he wrote numerous letters, recounting his artistic endeavours with great panache and self-confidence. His sister Mabel remained the most important companion and confident in his life, yet even that relationship has been the source of many conjectures based on the theory that their love was incestuous. Beardsley may have been blighted with debilitating illness all his life, and been the object of much rejection he rarely appears to have lacked self-assurance, his certitude of own talent never faltered, nor did his natural instinct towards the controversial diminish. Even as a child he remarked to his mother that he would be worthy of a commemorative stained glass window in his honour “I may be a great man one day”…. Sadly he never lived to see the honour that would be bestowed on him.

Beardsley - Salome

 As much as Beardsley’s work could shock as it ran counter-current to the mainstream notions of art, he was, nevertheless very much a child of his times. Whilst his themes appeared to satirize the social norms of late Victorian society, especially with his blurring and blending of the gender status quo, even in this he was mirroring a social phenomenon around him. The accepted patriarchal order and sense of morality was frequently perceived as being under threat from a disquietening female force; emasculating, predatory and sexual. Just as the great British Empire was being sapped of its strength and authority from foreign competition and the economic depression of the 1880’s, male superiority was being weakened by an unleashed feminine force. In this mood of pessimism the term Fin de Siècle signified not only the twilight years of the century, but also the end of an established order in which Beardsley was not only an influential figure, but also himself greatly influenced. The Arts and Crafts Movement had pitted itself against the shoddy mass produced ‘industrial’ art of a sentimental character, and likewise the nascent Aesthetic Movement rejected the study of the natural, the blind reliance on past artistic styles and unquestioning devotion to dull, out-moded Victorian themes. The Aesthetics, like the Decadents on the Continent, reacted against the confines of social norms and philosophy – rejecting the rigid explanations of Positivism, the dominance of Mother Nature, the urge of the bestial senses and implacable advance of time. Instead, under the growing influence of Symbolism, these artists turned towards the “beautiful inertia” of the ornate mind. Interiorisation and aesthetic stimulation could be seen as an attempt to reject the organic linear existence with which Nature enslaved man. Art could free man from this crude dominance since artistic creation would give rise to higher life of contemplation. In this manner art could lead nature and thus man, away from lowly, bestial existence whose basis was brutish reproduction.

 Many artists, Wilde and Beardsley amongst them, were influenced by the French novel, A Rebours, published in 1884 by J.K Huysmans with its themes of altered states brought on by synaesthesia, social and moral deviance, sexual ambiguity and the richesse nécessaire of artifice. The protagonist of the novel, Des Esseintes, seeks solace from life through an existence of heightened senses, but this ultimately leads to his downfall, with the treacherous figure of Salome as symbol and herald of his demise, just as she was for Beardsley himself. The initial title of the book was to be Seul (Alone), and indeed on reading the book another writer (Barbey d’Aurevilly) remarked in 1884 that after such a book one only had the choice between “the mouth of a gun or the feet of the crucifix”. Huysman’s novel, along with the paintings of Gustave Moreau were to have a dramatic effect on Beardsley and Wilde alike. The novel acted as a bible of decadence for Beardsley who decorated his home in Pimlico in orange and black in veneration of Des Esseintes house and demonstrated a preference for dandified clothing like his hero. Likewise Wilde’s anti-hero Dorian Grey is under the influence of an unspecified yellow French novel (A Rebours), and Wilde’s decision to write the play Salome in France in 1891 certainly springs from the same source. The writer asked the young artist to provide the illustrations. With a plot based on sex, deviance and corruption the resulting art could only be controversial, and this was certainly the case. However, it is interesting to note that even Wilde did not entirely approve and went on to remark that “I admire, I do not like Aubrey’s illustrations”. The working alliance was short-lived, and the personal relations soon strained with Beardsley later quipping that Wilde and his lover, Alfred Douglas (who attempted to translate Salome into English) were “truly unbearable people”. 

It is difficult to establish just how fraught these relations actually were, for while much is made of Beardsley’s caricatural drawings of Wilde, both artists often shared  common ground and vision. One could even get the impression that a certain jealousy and preciousness reigned, making of their angry rejection of each other mere acts of pique and schoolboy spats with Wilde even referring to Beardsley as a scribbling “precocious schoolboy”. Later the illustrator refused to let the writer contribute to the artistic magazines of which he was editor… Touché! 

The fact remains, however, that the Salome illustrations are still today generally considered to be the artist’s best works, and certainly the ones that propulsed him to fame. Salome, often presented by Beardsley in scenes that seem to have little reference to the original plot, herself represents with deadly accuracy the figure of the lethal femme fatale that terrified fin de siècle morality. Using her sexuality as a weapon to ensnare and disempower, Salome is not the enticing, demurring enchantress but rather a hard-eyed, cold-blooded force of masculine determination. Nevertheless, the horror of Salome’s aims and acts are offset by the beauty of Beardsley’s detail, all of which could only exasperate and confound late Victorian taste, even more so since the references were often anachronistic and provocative in themselves (books by Zola and Sade figure in a room, supposedly set in antiquity!). 

 Following the success of Salome Beardsley was known as a Decadent, paving the way for future artists of the Art Nouveau Movement with the languid lines of his work. He became the artistic editor of the fin de siècle magazines, The Yellow Book and The Savoy and thus his personal and professional life seemed assured. Yet ironic fate was to deal Beardsley a cruel blow for when Oscar Wilde was arrested for acts of gross indecency he was found to be carrying a yellow book. Although it wasn’t a Yellow Book magazine, merely a French book with yellow binding, from that moment the erroneous association was made, one from which Beardsley could not free himself. The Yellow Book was considered to be a symbol of sexual depravity and as editor, the strange persona of Beardsley could only be linked to such immorality. 

Once fired, Beardsley found it difficult to secure work of any kind and was finally obliged to accept work from a publisher of a certain renown, Leonard Smithers. It was Smithers who conceived The Savoy magazine, described as a manifesto in revolt against Victorian materialism. However, as a pornographer Smithers also demonstrated against Victorian morality. The creative association between publisher and illustrator was not as black as often portrayed, and Beardsley wrote many fond letters to Smithers yet it did give rise to work that was widely considered to be licentious in the extreme – and often not without reason. Beardsley’s illustrations were, to a degree, influenced by Japanese erotic art –shunga - and somehow his depictions always maintain their ironic innocence. His is the work of a shocked and shocking teenager even at its most potent and never enters the realm of blunt pornography.

Beardsley

Smithers asked Beardsley to illustrate Lysistrata by Aristophane and these were among the many illustrations that the artist implored the publisher “by all that is Holy” to destroy when on his death bed; Smithers did not comply. It is due to this failure to respect Beardsley’s last wishes that we have copies of these works today – not only illustrations, but also writings and his unfinished novel, Under the Hill.

Like Des Esseintes before him, Beardsley embraced Catholicism at the end of his life, converting to the faith a year before his death. This step was unsurprising in itself since Beardsley had had a religious upbringing as a child and it has been remarked to have been a natural continuation of the artist’s reverence of the cult, ritual and image, all couched in contemplation and beauty.

Beardsley

What I find sad about Beardsley’s life is that he knew that his days were literally numbered perhaps even from the outset. In a letter from his last full year he expressed his fears “I fancy I can count my life by months now”. He tried to find a climate which would alleviate some of his symptoms, or at least preserve him from the worst of these, but to no avail. He despaired when three days’ work was lost due to damp conditions since for him those three days were invaluable and could not be recuperated at a later date. He died in Menton in the South of France in 1898 at the age of 26. Some of Beardsley’s illustrations can be seen in Paris at the end of the exhibition that I visited – Beauté, morale et volupté dans l'Angleterre d'Oscar Wilde at the Quai d’Orsay. In view of what I knew and discovered about his life I found them to be the most moving works of the exhibition.

Harry Clarke - The colloquy of Monos and Una - 1919

I did however come across a strange echo of his work and life in that of an Irish stained glass artist and illustrator; Harry Clarke. Born just a year after Beardsley’s death, Clarke’s work (1889-1931) seems to be a strange amalgam of that of Burne-Jones and Beardsley. As the son of a craftsman, he was influenced by the artistic currents of his time – namely Art Nouveau. He studied stained glass in Dublin, but later moved to London as a book illustrator, yet his true career was in the field of stained glass. He did not confine himself to purely religious themes but also dealt with literary and secular narratives. Needless to say, Clarke was frequently compared to Beardsley but in fact his work is less static that the latter’s work, and his subject matter is much darker and ominous at times. His preference for black and white line work is perhaps partly inspired by the stained glass process, with heavy lines used to delimit and highlight the different elements. Harry Clarke died at a young age of tuberculosis while trying to recuperate his strength in a foreign country, just like Aubrey Beardsley.