Musical Accompaniment: Paragon Rag by Scott Joplin.

 

 

The English Illustrator Aubrey Beardsley died at age 25. I’ve been familiar with his work for a long time; it’s highly recognizable.  I’d seen a painting of him .

Aubrey Beardsley by Jacques-Émile Blanche, oil on canvas, 1895

I did t know anything about him beyond that. In reading about Aubrey Beardsley a bit, I found he is quite an interesting character. I was unprepared though for his  real appearance.

Aubrey was the product of a mésalliance, according to his mother, who had married beneath her station in life.  The family was poor.  And Aubrey tragically contracted tuberculosis at the age of 7.  He didn’t die but he was a very delicate child

Despite poor health and poverty,, Aubrey was seen as a bright child with recognizable talent. .He was especially talented with illustration. He modeled his style after Japanese woodcuts. As a teenager,Aubrey developed a taste for a particular style. He often wore dove-grey suits, court shoes, and sharp yellow gloves.

He befriended Oscar Wilde, who commissioned him to make a series of illustrations for his play Salomé  (Ruth St. Denis electrified audiences with her rendition of this character).  Oscar offered this description of his friend: “He has a face like a silver hatchet, and grass green hair.”

Besides commissions, Beardsley made many illustrations for The Yellow Book.

Beardsley’s health often prevented him from working. He knew his life would not be long, and strove to be productive. His work for The Yellow Book was often controversial. British critics considered his harsh black and white drawings featuring thin calligraphy-like images to be obscene and freakish.

Beardsley, who is associated with the Decadent and Aesthetic art movements, preferred the term “grotesque.”  He told friends, “I have one aim—the grotesque. If I am not grotesque, I am nothing.”

In December1896, Beardsley had a violent hemorrhage and, from that point on  his health declined.

He converted to Roman Catholicism in March 1897. A month later, he moved with his mother and sister to a home on the French Riviera, for the sake of his health.

Death could not be evaded, even in the French Riviera. It crept closer to Beardsley, and in March 1898, he penned his last letter. .It was addressed to his publisher, Leonard Smithers and his good friend Herbert Charles Pollitt:

March 7 1898 | Jesus is our Lord and Judge | Dear Friend, I implore you to destroy all copies of Lysistrata and bad drawings … By all that is holy, all obscene drawings. | Aubrey Beardsley | In my death agony.

As he was dying, his past “productivity” tormented poor Aubrey.  When he created them, he was a little cheeky but in death, he came to agree with  his harshest critics that they were indeed obscene and “bad.”

There he died of tuberculosis a year later, on 16 March 1898, attended by his mother and sister. He was 25 years old. Neither Pollitt nor Smithers honored Beardsley’s plea. This Beardsley illustration was published posthumously in this 1899 edition of Pan

Though I’m glad Beardsley’s work survived, I feel a little guilty looking at it, knowing he wanted it to be destroyed. I’m even indignant for him. Art is a very personal thing. if Aubrey Beardsley wanted to erase it from. public consciousness, he should have been able to do that.