Aubrey Beardsley

“ From the first rose a many-breasted dragon and four little loves mounted upon swans, and each love was furnished with a bow and arrow. Two of them that faced the monster seemed to recoil in fear, two that were behind made bold enough to aim their shafts at him. From the verge of the second sprang a circle of slim golden columns that supported silver doves with tails and wings spread out. The third, held by a group of grotesquely attenuated satyrs, was centered with a thin pipe hung with masks and roses and capped with children's heads. ”

“ Meantime, La Popelinière stepped forward with the frock.
"I shan't wear one to-night," said Helen. Then she slipped on her gloves.
When the toilet was at an end all her doves clustered round her feet loving to froler her ankles with their plumes, and the dwarfs clapped their hands, and put their fingers between their lips and whistled. Never before had Helen been so radiant and compelling. Spiridion, in the corner, looked up from his game of Spellicans and trembled.
Just then, Pranzmungel announced that supper was ready upon the fifth terrace. "Ah!" cried Helen, "I'm famished!" ”

“ There were spotted veils that seemed to stain the skin, fans with eye-slits in them, through which the bearers peeped and peered; fans painted with figures and covered with the sonnets of Sporion and the short stories of Scaramouch; and fans of big, living moths stuck upon mounts of silver sticks. There were masks of green velvet that make the face look trebly powdered; masks of the heads of birds, of apes, of serpents, of dolphins, of men and women, of little embryons and of cats; masks like the faces of gods; masks of coloured glass, and masks of thin talc and of india-rubber. ”

“ Within the delicate curved frames lived the corrupt and gracious creatures of Dorat and his school, slender children in masque and domino smiling horribly, exquisite letchers leaning over the shoulders of smooth doll-like girls and doing nothing in particular, terrible little Pierrots posing as lady lovers and pointing at something outside the picture, and unearthly fops and huge bird-like women mingling in some rococo room, lighted mysteriously by the flicker of a dying fire that throws great shadows upon wall and ceiling. ”

“ This applies not only to Great Britain, but equally to America, whilst in Germany, France, Belgium, Russia and Holland, it is safe to affirm that his reputation is steadily growing, especially in Germany. Indeed, it is obvious to the most superficial observer that there is hardly a Black and White artist working to-day who has not in some subtle way been influenced by the master.
More than three-fourths of Beardsley's work passed through my hands, and to my knowledge he never used Chinese White. I am the fortunate possessor of the originals of over eighty of his principal drawings. ”

“ I would not for the world that your delicate Southern ear should be offended by a barbarous assault of rude and Gothic words; but methinks no language is rude that can boast polite writers, and not a few such have flourished in this country in times past, bringing our common speech to very great perfection. In the present age, alas! our pens are ravished by unlettered authors and unmannered critics, that make a havoc rather than a building, a wilderness rather than a garden. ”

“ Sporion stepped forward and explained with swift and various gesture that he and his friends were tired of the amusements, wearied with the poor pleasures offered by the civil world, and had invaded the Arcadian valley hoping to experience a new frisson in the destruction of some shepherd's or some satyr's naïveté, and the infusion of their venom among the dwellers of the woods. ”

“ Arthur Symonds started "The Savoy," as a rival, to which Beardsley, again as Art Editor, contributed another fine series of drawings.
I well remember being interviewed in New York regarding the alleged decadence in Beardsley's work. I said then, and repeat now, that he merely lashed the follies of his time, that he was the Hogarth of his day, and that he had no more sympathy with decadence than Hogarth had for the vices depicted in "The Rake's Progress" and "Marriage à la Mode." Knowledge must never be confounded with sympathy. ”

“ Though it be true that all men have sufficient wit to pass a judgment on this or that, and not a few sufficient impudence to print the same (these last being commonly accounted critics) , I have ever held that the critical faculty is more rare than the inventive. It is a faculty your Eminence possesses in so great a degree that your praise or blame is something oracular, your utterance infallible as great genius or as a beautiful woman. ”

“ The orange-trees and myrtles, looped with vermilion sashes, stood in frail porcelain pots, and the rose-trees were wound and twisted with superb invention over trellis and standard. Upon one side of the terrace a long gilded stage for the comedians was curtained off with Pagonian tapestries, and in front of it the music-stands were placed.
The tables arranged between the fountain and the flight of steps to the sixth terrace were all circular, covered with white damask, and strewn with irises, roses, kingcups, colombines, daffodils, carnations and lilies ”

“ It is a thousand pities that concerts should only be given either in the afternoon, when you are torpid, or in the evening, when you are nervous. Surely you should assist at fine music as you assist at the Mass—before noon—when your brain and heart are not too troubled and tired with the secular influences of the growing day. ”

“ From harsh and shrill and clamant, the voices grew blurred and inarticulate. Bad sentences were helped out by worse gestures, and at one table Scabius expressed himself like the famous old knight in the first part of the "Soldier's Fortune" of Otway. Bassalissa and Lysistrata tried to pronounce each other's names, and became very affectionate in the attempt; and Tala, the tragedian, robed in roomy purple, and wearing plume and buskin, rose to his feet, and, with swaying gestures, began to recite one of his favourite parts. ”

“ Mere hunger quickly gave place to those finer instincts of the pure gourmet, and the strange wines, cooled in buckets of snow, unloosed all the decollete spirits of astonishing conversation and atrocious laughter. ”

“ Learning without appreciation is a thing of naught, but I know not which is greatest in you—your love of the arts, or your knowledge of 'em. What wonder then that I am studious to please you, and desirous of your protection. ”

“ When an Englishman has professed his belief in the supremacy of Shakespeare amongst all poets, he feels himself excused from the general study of literature. He also feels himself excused from the particular study of Shakespeare. ”

“ It is a pity that so perfect a Mecænas should have no Horace to befriend, no Georgies to accept; for the offices and function of patron or critic must of necessity be lessened in an age of little men and little work. ”

“ AUBREY BEARDSLEY.
[1] The chef d'oeuvre, it seems to me, of an adorable and impeccable master, who more than any other landscape-painter puts us out of conceit with our cities, and makes us forget the country can be graceless and dull and tiresome. That he should ever have been compared unfavourably with Turner—the Wiertz of landscape-painting—seems almost incredible. Corot is Claude's only worthy rival, but he does not eclipse or supplant the earlier master. A painting of Corot's is like an exquisite lyric poem, full of love and truth ”

“ What a great artist!" and then sotto voce, "if he could only draw." My retort was, "Sir Frederick, I am tired of seeing men who can only draw." "Oh! yes," said Sir Frederick, "I know what you mean, and you are quite right too."
There was indeed a universal howl against the cover and title-page designs, which it will be remembered were both the work of Beardsley. However the conductors of "The Yellow Book" were nothing daunted and proceeded to announce that for each volume in the future Mr. Beardsley would complete new cover and title-page designs. ”

“ The First Book of Fifty Drawings, which preceded this volume, is now selling at a greatly enhanced price. The present volume is remarkable as containing several reproductions from very early sketches, as well as many executed in the artist's most individual style, among which is a photogravure of "Mademoiselle de Maupin," one design in colour, and three photogravures which show how strong, at one time, was the Burne-Jones influence upon Beardsley. ”

“ The only place in London where one can forget that it is Sunday. ”

“ Pope has more virulence and less vehemence than any of the great satirists. His character of Sporus is the perfection of satirical writing. The very sound of words scarify before the sense strikes. ”

“ A few of my random recollections of Beardsley's association with "The Yellow Book" perhaps will not be amiss.
Until the publication of the first volume of "The Yellow Book" in 1894, Beardsley was practically unknown, his drawings for "Le Morte D'Arthur" and his marvellous designs illustrating "Salomé" constituting his artistic record. It was at this time, then, that one morning he, with Mr. Henry Harland and myself, during half an hour's chat over our cigarettes at the Hogarth Club, founded the much discussed "Yellow Book." Beardsley became Art Editor, whilst Mr. ”

“ Beardsley has contributed a frontispiece à propos of 'Scaramouch in Naxos' in which one or two well-known faces of the day are to be recognised—an error or taste which is to be regretted."
The subjects of Beardsley's two portraits were Mr. Wilde and Sir Augustus Harris; the latter Beardsley considered his debtor by virtue of his having taken half a crown at Covent Garden Theatre without providing him with a seat.
Aubrey Beardsley was born on August 21, 1872, and died on March 16, 1898. During his short life he carried the art of Black and White further than any man since Albert Dürer. ”

“ They surpassed all that Japan has ever pictured from her maisons vertes, all that was ever painted in the cool bath-rooms of Cardinal La Motte, and even outdid the astonishing illustrations to Jones's "Nursery Numbers."
"A pretty portal," murmured the Abbé, correcting his sash. ”

“ If the New Art is represented by the cover of this wonderful volume, it is scarcely calculated to attract by its intrinsic beauty or merit; possibly, however, it may be intended to attract by its very repulsiveness and insolence, and in that case it is not unlikely to be successful. Its note appears to be a combination of English rowdyism with French lubricity.... Sir Frederick Leighton, who contributes two graceful studies, finds himself cheek by jowl with such advanced and riotous representatives of the New Art as Mr. Aubrey Beardsley and Mr. ”

“ On the whole the New Art and the New Literature appear to us to compare in this singular volume far from favourably with the old."
It may interest the Times critic to know that Sir Frederick Leighton was a great admirer of Beardsley's work. At one of Sir Frederick's periodical visits to the Bodley Head to see how the New Art and the New Literature were developing, he playfully suggested that if he was not "performing an R.A. duty he was doing a neighbourly one." He asked to see the originals of Beardsley's "Yellow Book" pictures (Vol. I.) , and then remarked: "Ah! ”

“ Anyhow it was a wonderful lake, a beautiful lake.
TWO LETTERS OF AUBREY BEARDSLEY
Beardsley unfortunately wrote but few letters. The following is characteristic of the humorous courtesy with which he received criticism:
To the Editor of the Pall Mall Budget.
"SIR,—So much exception has been taken, both by the Press and by private persons, to my title-page of 'The Yellow Book,' [1] that I must plead for space in your valuable paper to enlighten those who profess to find my picture unintelligible. It represents a lady playing the piano in the middle of a field. Unpardonable affectation! ”

“ In all there are upwards of 170 reproductions, including three in colour and eleven in photogravure.
In the Japanese Vellum edition several illustrations are reproduced in photogravure, instead of half-tone as in the ordinary edition, whilst the frontispiece is hand-coloured.
A SECOND BOOK OF FIFTY DRAWINGS BY AUBREY BEARDSLEY
Crown 4to. Price 10s. 6d. net
This Edition is limited to one thousand copies of the ordinary issue, and fifty copies printed on Japanese Vellum (exhausted on publication) . ”