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Aubrey BeardsleyAubrey Beardsley Pictures
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Aubrey Vincent Beardsley was a true genius, an artist whose style derived from Pre-Raphaelite origins but transformed into a truly unique form of illustration which defied tradition and exhilarated its admirers. Undoubtedly Art Nouveau, Aubrey Beardsley pictures are nonetheless immediately recognisable as his own. Although he lived in the Victorian period, he was certainly more Edwardian in outlook; flowering as he did in the 1890s, he was the perfect example of the Naughty Nineties and fin de siecle even if he didn't quite make it that far.
Born in Brighton, Sussex, in 1872 Beardsley contracted tuberculosis, presumably from his father, early in life and knew that he was destined for a short and consumption-weakened life, so determined to pack as much into that life as possible. He was a fine musician when young, but chose to express his genius through pictures and not music. By the age of 19 or so he had developed his unique style to the point where it was in commercial demand by the burgeoning aesthetic movement for both books and magazines. In the next 6 years Aubrey Beardsley created many hundreds of pictures for both commission and for his own pleasure before dying in 1898 at the age of 25. He worked painstakingly but fast with pen and ink, preferring to draw with curtains closed in candlelight whatever the time of day or conditions outside. Beardsley pictures were crucial to the early flowerings of art magazines the Yellow Book, The Studio and Savoy, and he illustrated brilliantly Le Morte d'Arthur by Thomas Malory, although was somewhat tardy and less brilliant for the second volume as his interest in the project waned. As an important member of the Aesthetic movement he knew well Oscar Wilde and illustrated controversially (two of the Aubrey Beardsley illustrations were banned at first) the already controversial play Salome by Wilde. Beardsley's connections with the theatre were particularly strong as his sister, Mabel Beardsley, his close companion, was a professional actress. Although known for his unique black-and-white illustration, Aubrey Beardsley had begun to experiment with colour late in his tragically short life and would undoubtedly have mastered that as brilliantly as he did with his black-&-white pictures. He died at Menton in the South of France. | |||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
