Robert Baldwin Ross

“ Those who cavil at his flawless technique ignore the specific quality of drawing characterising every great artist. The grammar of art exists only to be violated. Its rules can be learnt by anyone. Those who have no artistic perception invariably find fault with the perspective, just as those who cannot write a well-balanced sentence are always swift to detect faults in grammar or spelling. There are, of course, weaknesses in the extremities of Beardsley's figures—the hands and feet being interruptions rather than continuations of the limbs. ”

“ Art cant and studio jargon do not explain his work. It is really only the presence or absence of beauty in his drawing, and his wonderful powers of technique which need trouble his admirers or detractors. Nor are we confronted with any conjecture as to what Aubrey Beardsley might have done—he has left a series of achievements. While his early death caused deep sorrow among his personal friends, there need be no sorrow for an "inheritor of unfulfilled renown." Old age is no more a necessary complement to the realization of genius than premature death. ”

“ Beardsley, who received recognition for this side of his genius, emphasized the grotesque to an extent that precluded any popularity among people who care only for the trivial and "pretty." In him it was allied to a mordant humour, a certain fescennine abstraction which sometimes offends: this, however, does not excuse the use of the word "eccentric," more misapplied than any word in the English language, except perhaps "grotesque" and "picturesque." All great art is eccentric to the conservative multitude. ”

“ It has been called the most modern of the arts; for the most finished drawings of the old masters were done with a view to serve as studies or designs to be transferred to canvas, metal, and wood, not for frames at an expensive dealer's. Vittore Pisano and Gentile Bellini would hardly have dared to mount their delightful studies and offer them as pictures to the critics and patrons of their day. At all events it were safer to say, that appreciation of a drawing for itself, without relation to the book or page it was intended to adorn or destroy, is comparatively modern. ”

“ A series of grotesques to decorate some rather silly anthologies produced in the same year as the "Morte d'Arthur" are marvels of ingenuity, and far more characteristic. With them he began a new period, throwing over the deliberate archaism and mediævalism, of which he began to tire. In the illustrations to "Salomé," he reached the consummation of the new convention he created for himself; they are, collectively, his masterpiece. In the whole range of art there is nothing like them. ”

“ Yet, when an artist frankly deals [48] with forbidden subjects, the old canons regular of English art begin to thunder, the critics forget their French accent; the old Robert Adam, which is in all of us, asserts himself; we fly for the fig-leaves. A real artist, Beardsley has not burdened himself with chronology or archæology. ”

“ He always, however, defended that institution with enthusiasm, saying he would rather be an Academician than an artist, "as it takes only one man to make an artist, but forty to make an Academician."
Our next meeting was a few weeks later, when he brought me a replica of his "Joan of Arc." I was anxious to buy the first and better version, now in the possession of Mr Frederick Evans, but he refused to part with it at the time. He seemed particularly proud of the drawing; it was the only work of this period he would allow to have any merit. ”

“ His knowledge of life, art, and literature seemed the result of instinct rather than study; for no one has ever discovered where he found the time or opportunity for assimilating all he did. Gregarious and sociable by nature, he was amusingly secretive about his methods and times of work. Like other industrious men, he never pretended to be busy or pressed for time. ”

“ Imagination is the great pirate of art, and with Beardsley becomes a pretext for invention.
Prior to 1891 his drawings are interesting only for their precocity; they may be regarded, as one of his friends has said, more as a presage than a precedent. You marvel, on realizing the short interval which elapsed between their production and the masterpieces of his maturity. His first enthusiasm was for the work of the Italian primitives, as Mr Charles Whibley says, distinguished "for its free and flowing line." ”

“ Artists and critics have already dwelt on the beauty of Aubrey Beardsley's line, which in his early work too often resolved itself into mere caligraphy; but the mature and perfect illustrations to "Salomé" and "The Rape of the Lock" evince a mastery unsurpassed by any artist in any age or country. No one ever carried a simple line to its inevitable end with such sureness and firmness [32] of purpose. And this is one of the lessons which even an accomplished draughtsman may learn from his drawings, in any age when scraggy execution masquerades under impressionism. ”

“ With the shadow of death always over him and conscious of the brief time before him, he never gave himself up to morbid despair or useless complaints. He determined to enjoy life, and, equipped with all the curiosity and gaiety of boyhood, he caught at life's exquisite moments. ”

“ While hardly satisfying those for whom any work of art guilty of "subject" becomes worthless, this immunity from the conventions of the illustrator will secure for Beardsley a larger share of esteem among artists pure and simple than has ever fallen to William Blake, who appeals more to men of letters than to the artist or virtuoso. The uncritical profess to find many terrible meanings in Aubrey Beardsley's drawings; and he will probably never be freed from the charge of symbolism. ”

“ To Mr Pennell belongs the credit of introducing Beardsley's art to the public; and to Mr Dent is due the rare distinction of giving him practical encouragement, by commissioning the illustrations to the "Morte d'Arthur," long before [15] critics had written anything about him, or any but a few friends knew of his great powers. Beardsley was too remarkable a personality to remain in obscurity. Though I remember with some amusement how the editor of a well-known weekly mocked at a prophecy that the artist was a coming man who would very shortly excite discussion if not admiration. ”

“ With more simple materials than those employed by the fathers of black and white art, Beardsley has left memorials no less wonderful than those of the Greek vase-painters, so highly prized by artists and archæologists alike, but no less difficult for the uninitiated to appreciate and understand. ”

“ The works of Whistler and Burne-Jones, once derided as eccentric, are now accepted as the commencement of great traditions. All future art will be dubbed eccentric, trampled on, and despised; even as the first tulip that blossomed in England was [51] rooted out and burnt for a worthless weed by the conscientious Scotch gardener.
A DESIGN FROM 'LYSISTRATA'
To compare Beardsley with any of his contemporaries would be unjust to them and to him. He belonged to no school, and can leave no legend, in the sense that Rossetti, Whistler, and Professor Legros have done; he proclaimed no theory ”

“ The use of a camel's-hair brush for the illustrations to "Mademoiselle de Maupin," one of his last works, should be noted, as he so rarely used one. Beardsley's invention never failed him, so that it is almost impossible to take a single drawing, or set of drawings, as typical of his art. Each design is rather a type of his own intellectual mood. ”

“ From the infinite variety of the Savoy Magazine it is difficult to choose any of particular importance: for his elaborate manner, the first plate to "Under the Hill"; and in a simpler style, the fascinating illustration to his own poem, "The Barber"; "Ave Atque Vale" and "The Death of Pierrot" have, besides, a human interest [49] over and above any artistic quality they possess. For the "Volpone" drawings Beardsley again developed his style, and seeking for new effects, reverted to pure pencil work. ”

“ Fortunately Mr Pennell, a distinguished artist himself, and a fearless critic, not only espoused the cause of the new draughtsman, but became a personal friend for whom Beardsley always evinced great affection, and to whom he dedicated his "Album of Fifty Drawings." ”

“ Critical appreciation under his pen meant creation. From the Greek vase painting he learned that drapery can be represented effectually with a few lines, disposed with economy, not by a number of unfinished scratches and superfluous shading. If the "Salomé" drawings have any fault at all, it is that the texture of the pictures suggests some other medium than pen and ink, as Mr Walter Crane has pointed out in his other work. They are wrought rather than drawn, and might be designs for the panel of a cabinet, for Limoges or Oriental enamel. ”

“ His writings, however brilliant—and they often were brilliant—shewed a dangerous cleverness, which on cultivation might have proved disastrous to the realization of his true genius. "Under the Hill" is a delightful experiment in a rococo style of literature, and it would be difficult to praise sufficiently the rhythm and metrical adroitness of the two poems in the Savoy Magazine. [22] Though I cannot speak of his musical attainments, it may be regarded as fortunate that so remarkable a genius was directed to a more permanent form of executive power. ”

“ He made friends and remained friends with many for whom his art was totally unintelligible. Social charm triumphed over all differences. He would speak with enthusiasm about writers and artists quite out of sympathy with his own aims and aspirations. ”

“ His peculiar gait has been very happily rendered in a portrait of him by Mr Walter Sickert; he also sat to M. Blanche, the well-known French portrait painter; the portrait by himself is tinged with caricature.
To estimate the art of Aubrey Beardsley is not difficult. That his drawings must excite discussion at all times is only a proof of their [31] lasting worth. They can never be dismissed with unkindly comment, nor shelved into the limbo of art criticism which waits for many blameless and depressing productions of the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries. ”

“ The treatment of nature in the larger and truer sense of the word had little attraction for him; he never tried, therefore, to represent air, atmosphere, and light, as many clever modern artists have done in black and white! Though Claude, that master of light and shadow, was a landscape painter who really interested him. ”

“ Mediævalism for the middle classes always ensures an appreciative audience. Oddly enough, Morris was said to be annoyed by the sincerest form of flattery. Perhaps he felt that every school of art comes to an end with the birth of the founder, and that Beardsley was only exercising himself in an alien field of which Morris himself owned the tithe. At all events it is not unlikely that Beardsley aroused in the great poet and decorator the same suspicion that he had undoubtedly done in Watts.
The "Morte d'Arthur" may be said, for convenience, to close Aubrey Beardsley's first period ”

“ For the purpose of effect he adapted proportions, realizing that perfect congruity and reality are irreconcilable. None of the figures in the dramatic "Battle of Beaux and Belles" could sit on the fallen chair in the foreground.
There is no need to disturb ourselves with hopes and fears for the estimation with which posterity will cherish his memory; art history cannot afford to overlook him ”

“ XI. Small design, printed in gold on cloth, front cover of "Salome"; another, consisting of an elaboration of the artist's device, for the under side of cover.
XII. Study of a design of peacock feathers for cover of "Salome," not used at the time, but subsequently reproduced for the first time in facsimile in "Early Work," and again as an illustration following the title-page in reissue of "Salome" (John Lane, 1907) ; also in gold on light green cloth for ornament of the binding, and in olive green on orange-red for the paper cap. ”

“ Woman reclining in a Meadow by the Border of a Lake, listening to a Faun reading out of a Book to Her. Oblong design in ink on white; a variant of the design for wrapper of Leonard Smithers' Catalogue, No. 3. First published in The Studio, May 1898, again in "Early Work," where it is described as "hitherto unpublished." (Property of John Lane, Esq.) 1895.
121. Design for Wrapper of "Catalogue of Rare Books," No. 3. (Leonard Smithers, September 1895.) The same figures as in the last-named, but the landscape [99] has an urn and additional trees to adapt the design to upright shape. ”

“ He said once that only four of his contemporaries interested him. He [29] bore with extraordinary patience the assertions of foolish persons who calmly asserted that both in America and England other artists had anticipated the peculiarities of his style and methods. I have seen the works of these Lambert Simnels and Perkin Warbecks, and they proved, one and all, crows in peacocks' feathers. Beardsley's style, nevertheless, influenced (unfortunately, I think) many excellent artists both younger and older than himself. ”

“ XI. Frieze for chapter-heading; six men fighting, on foot, three of them panoplied. Reproduced in Magazine of Art, November 1896, "Fifty Drawings," Idler, March 1897, and St Paul's, April 9th, 1898. The original drawing is 13-3/4 inches long by 4-1/2 inches. As may be seen, even in the reduced reproduction, one inch at either end was added by the artist at the request of his publisher, so as to increase the proportionate length of the ornament. ”

“ A Poster Design (Singer) . Woman seated at a piano. First reproduced in The Poster, October 1898, again in "Second Book" and in "Later Work."
97. Lady to right gazing at a Hat on a Milliner's Bonnet Stand, headpiece for the "Idlers' Club" section in the Idler Magazine, 1894.
98. Pierrot and Black Cat, small square in black-and-white for a book ornament. ”