I recently found out that I technically share a birthday (21 August) with Aubrey Beardsley (I say technically because I was actually born the 16th of August, but my birth certificate says the 21st), with whom my association started with finding an editon of The Yellow Book that he started along with Henry Harland. Little did I know he would prove to be so fascinating a subject.
Beardsley was a leading member of the Aestheticism movement along with Oscar Wilde and Whistler. Aestheticism or the Aesthetic Movement placed aesthetic values above all others - the nature of beauty, art, taste, and creation of beautiful things were all the Asthetes cared about. Society and politics held no interest for them. It was all about decadence
This isn't the Yellow Book I have, I have the same cover but it's a selection of bits from the various editions of The Yellow Book. Beardsley designed the yellow cover when he served as the quarterly's first art director. If you ever spot one, snap it up. They are on my list of books I'm always on the look out for. I would love to own an entire collection.
Beardsley illustrations along with his French counterpart Toulouse-Latrec are the epitome of Art Nouveau til this day. And the proof is in how many people claim to be inspired by Aubrey Beardsley - his life, his work, his dandyism, his philosophy, his literature.
Djuna Barnes, authoress, claimed that Beardsley inspired her illustrations. Beardsley has been hugely influential to people in fashion. Vivienne Westwood, Zandra Rhodes, Paul Poiret, and Yves Saint Laurent and Christian Lacroix have all claimed Beardsley an inspiration at one point or another.
But what can I say about Aubrey Beardsley that wasn't better said by Oscar Wilde himself? Beardsley wasn't just an artist, he was a damn fine writer too. A real wit. As for the rest, let the Asthete have his say:
"Superbly premature as the flowering of his genius was, still he had immense development, and had not sounded his last stop. There were great possibilities in the cavern of his soul, and there is something macabre and tragic in the fact that one who added another terror to life should have died at the age of a flower." Oscar Wilde
Beardsley was a leading member of the Aestheticism movement along with Oscar Wilde and Whistler. Aestheticism or the Aesthetic Movement placed aesthetic values above all others - the nature of beauty, art, taste, and creation of beautiful things were all the Asthetes cared about. Society and politics held no interest for them. It was all about decadence
This isn't the Yellow Book I have, I have the same cover but it's a selection of bits from the various editions of The Yellow Book. Beardsley designed the yellow cover when he served as the quarterly's first art director. If you ever spot one, snap it up. They are on my list of books I'm always on the look out for. I would love to own an entire collection.
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| Image courtesy of Nothing Elegant. |
Beardsley was fabulous. He was the most controversial artist of the Art Nouveau era (which I imagine must really mean something) because he hung out with openly homosexual Oscar Wilde and made erotic drawings. The truth is no one knew if Beardsley was straight or not. That he loved his work and only his work seems to be the generous consensus now (via biographers) and then (even Wilde himself thought Beardsley had time "for neither ladies nor lads").
Beardsley illustrations along with his French counterpart Toulouse-Latrec are the epitome of Art Nouveau til this day. And the proof is in how many people claim to be inspired by Aubrey Beardsley - his life, his work, his dandyism, his philosophy, his literature.
Djuna Barnes, authoress, claimed that Beardsley inspired her illustrations. Beardsley has been hugely influential to people in fashion. Vivienne Westwood, Zandra Rhodes, Paul Poiret, and Yves Saint Laurent and Christian Lacroix have all claimed Beardsley an inspiration at one point or another.
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| Illustration by Djuna Barnes from the Ladies' Almanack. |
But what can I say about Aubrey Beardsley that wasn't better said by Oscar Wilde himself? Beardsley wasn't just an artist, he was a damn fine writer too. A real wit. As for the rest, let the Asthete have his say:
"Superbly premature as the flowering of his genius was, still he had immense development, and had not sounded his last stop. There were great possibilities in the cavern of his soul, and there is something macabre and tragic in the fact that one who added another terror to life should have died at the age of a flower." Oscar Wilde
