John Smith, the manager of Chichester’s Oxfam bookshop gave us a fascinating talk on Aubrey Beardsley, (1872-1898) the Brighton born book illustrator who died young (at 25) and was not afraid to scandalise and shock the establishment.
John began by noting that the Chichester Oxfam bookshop was the 15th highest grossing bookshop out of 137 in sales and that he was working on a database of book illustrators with article references attached.
John gave us an overview of Beardsley’s work on Le Morte d’Arthur, and Salome and his contributions to the journals Yellow Book and Savoy and his one forgotten story Under the Hill. He was influenced by William Morris and Burne-Jones who introduced him to Oscar Wilde, and by Japanese woodcuts. He produced over 400 drawings in black and white ink for Le Morte d’Arthur and resigned his clerical job after this commission. His drawings were characterized by sexuality, nudity, the natural world and wicked intent. Beardsley made Malory’s work his own with his distinctive illustrations. Burne-Jones had high praise for him, when he was a complete unknown, and advised him to go to art school in Kensington under Fred Brown.
Beardsley had an irreverent approach to religion and used angels, devils and the occult in his work. He contributed to the Studio journal, launched in 1893, with the cover illustration and 10 illustrations from Salome. There were problems with the English translation of Salome involving Wilde’s lover, Lord Alfred Douglas, and Beardsley’s translation, both of which were rejected. The shocking image of Salome kissing the head of John the Baptist showed AB’s irreverent streak. Beardsley’s depiction of Wilde as King Herod alienated Wilde who described Beardsley’s work as the “naughty scribblings of a precocious schoolboy.” Subsequently Beardsley was sacked by the publisher John Lane as part of the associated fall out over the Wilde/Douglas scandal.
Aubrey worked on the quarterly Yellow Book as Art Editor for 4 years and did the cover and many illustrations. It was a melting pot of literary articles with the art and literature in separate sections and was phenomenally successful. He also worked on the Savoy monthly magazine published by Leonard Smithers who rather took advantage of Beardsley and paid him for writing dirty limericks. Beardsley tried, somewhat unsuccessfully, to write poetry. His only novel “Under the Hill” (1903, based on the Tannhauser legend, was criticised by Arthur Symons as not really very good prose. It was only published in full after his death and completed by John Glassgo. Whistler considered Aubrey a great artist, even though Beardsley had insulted him with an unflattering likeness of his wife.
The fact that we know his name over 125 years after his death is no small achievement for such a short life.
In the questions at the end a biography by Brigid Brophy, “Beardsley and His World” (1976) was mentioned and the revival of interest in Beardsley’s work in the 1960’s. The possibility that his creativity was spurred by the knowledge that he would die young of T.B. was raised.
John brought along several books of interest which members were able to browse at the end of this engaging talk. See some examples below.
I came across an interesting BBC4 documentary on BBC IPlayer – Beardsley and his Work , 50min, 2020 which I can recommend!
Lois Coulthart