In order to understand Beardsley’s art one has to know the artist himself, for his character was intimately tied to his work. His artistic development and production was condensed into his short life-span, causing him to start commissions as young as 9 years old and produce a myriad of illustrations, publications, books, and other commissioned artwork before he died at the young as of 25. He knew from the age of 7 that he would die at an early age from tuberculosis, and approached life with a vigor and fervor to produce and live as much as possible. “He lived his adult life in dread of immediate death and in a terrible artistic hurry: to discover his proper medium and create his individual style (both of which proved revolutionary in their effects) and then simply, in obedience to his imagination, to create – in time” (Brophy 5). He worked at a feverish pace, spurred on by his desire to reveal a grotesque and ‘unmentionable’ version of eroticism that would shock, intrigue and captive viewers over a century later.
Beardsley was a self made artist, starting commissions at the early age of 9 and never having more than a few months of formal art training. It is due to this (and his eccentricities) and his unique perverse way of viewing the world that he was able to produce such aesthetically and conceptually revolutionary work. “[He] so cultivated this aspect of his persona [that is, erotic mania so noticeable in gifted consumptives] that eroticism became the dominant emotion and significance in life to him” (Calloway 160). This partly arose from the fact that he was diagnosed with tuberculosis as a young child, ad “he lived in feverish fantasies arising from illness and from deprivation, and had, he realized, an obsessive intellectual interest in sexual matters” (Weintraub 135). Beardsley was an eccentric character, an aspect of his personality that he flaunted and exploited to an extreme. His art and his life almost became one in a sense, because both were obsessed with the grotesque and unabashed to reveal its true nature (or himself). He was self educated and well read on the erotic arts of ancient Greece, Japan, and 18th century France (Calloway 160). Eroticism fascinated him, and he immersed his life in it (sleeping with prostitutes and having an ambiguous sexual orientation/genitalia) while exposing it to the public through his illustrations for books, publications, and general commissions. Many considered his work to border on Satanist, due to its elaborate imagery of evil creatures and amoral narratives. That people thought this of his work amused Beardsley, for he loved exploiting his knowledge of the perverse by exposing it (Calloway 168).
Beardsley stands apart from other artists with work that is highly eroticized and sexualized because of his aesthetic and presentation. He was able to take pornographic material and concepts and depict it in such a way that it could be lifted up and argued for being ‘fine art’ (Pease 73). Beardsley might have been young and untrained, but no critic doubted his complete “formal mastery over the material” that he worked with (Pease 73). His aesthetic of working almost entirely with black ink on white paper and incorporating sensuous details and graphic motifs that were avant-garde. As one of his close friends stated, “he has decorated white sheets of paper as they have never been decorated before” (Calloway 219). He created narratives that were perverted beyond what most people at the time would ever admit to imagining and depicted them in such a way that were grotesque and captivating simultaneously. It is largely due to this that his “imagery, unlike that of almost any other ‘historic’ artist … was perceived as something subversive in itself and fascinating, not least for the way in which his characters seemed to offer role-models of over sexuality, sexual ambiguity, and self-proclaiming decadence” (Calloway 218). His work was controversial, but it was artistic and developed thoroughly to the point where it was “art” and accessible to more than just the ‘scum of the earth’ who look at pornographic material. It made its way into the mainstream of media being distributed to society, which shows how desperate the public was for an artist such as Beardsley who revealed voyeurism, perversity, obscenity, and fetishism for their true innate qualities.
Although perversity burrowed its way into most of his work, Beardsley’s Lysistrata drawings are exacerbated in their sexualized and obscene imagery. This group of eight images that were commissioned to accompany a play displayed a freerer side to Beardsley, one less contained by ornamentalism but that displays “an extraordinary frank and free sexuality with a bold simplified, almost abstracted quality of drawing” (Calloway 171). Influence can be seen in this work from his studies of Greek vases and the sexualized imagery depicted on them. These illustrations display enlarged genitalia, women masturbating, sodomy, and women stroking one another. These works were so highly controversial that they were not published until 1966, and by that time one of the drawings had burned in a fire, and no sketches of that work were left. As much as these drawings were free and full of Beardsley’s character, they still adhered to the content of the play, for “we can still catch glimpses of the ribald melancholy, the significant buffoonery, and the grotesque animality which are among the ingredients of the play” (Calloway 174). This shows his prowess at picking elements from plays or texts and illustrating them with his own voyeuristic style, which demonstrates how he was able to financially survive as an artist but also not lose his soul and creativity to his clients. Especially with these illustrations his voyeurism is exceedingly present, while “permits him to observe more clearly and above all to address his images to his audience” (Fletcher 27). He thus makes his perversity available and open to the viewer. In this example of Lysistrata shielding her Coynte (1896) one can see almost all of Beardsley’s prowesses and eccentricities as an artist present in the imagery. There is less ornamentalism in the piece, allowing it to breathe and more meanings to reside within the image. He leaves some of the narrative oven to the viewer to fill in, which leads to its relationship to pornography. Lysistrata is touching a giant erect penis while masturbating, which in a modern pornography magazine would be obscene and graphic; however, with Beardsley’s aesthetics and manner of depicting the image, it strikes the viewer as eccentric and grotesque fine art. His attention to detail and the overall flow of the composition makes the piece deliberate in every aspect, which in a manner authenticates the image as art. As with almost all of his voyeuristic pieces Lysistrata’s gaze doesn’t meet the viewer, instead she is caught in a moment of her own, making us as viewers voyeurs as well.
Lysistrata shielding her Coynte; illustration for Lysistrata. Pen and Ink. V&A, Harari Collection.
Beardsley takes all of the concepts and exaggerations presented in the Lysistrata illustrations and pushes them farther in The Impatient Adulterer, one of Beardsley’s works that critics consider to be the most perverse in nature. This drawing, like many of his others, reveals a narrative of voyeurism that is sleazy and of questionable morality. However, as with all of his work it is “beautifully executed in such technique and medium as only [he] was master of, yet devilish in subject” (Calloway 180). The man’s features are distorted to an extent where he is sleazy and foul, obscene in his voyeurism and masturbation. This work differs from Lysistrata and other similar works by Beardsley because among those even with morally questionable fetishes exposed the pictures hold an elegance and beauty that makes the narrative less vulgar. In this illustration though the man’s toes are deformed, his legs are awkwardly shaped, his penis is semi flaccid, and his facial structure resembles that of a caveman. Beardsley imparts almost no decadent ornamentation to the illustration, stripping the work to the bare essentials of nastiness and vulgarity.
The Impatient Adulterer, 1896; illustration for the Sixth Satire of Juvenal. Pen and Ink. V&A, Harari Collection.
Beardsley’s highly sexualized work is important not only for its artist value but its worth as a means of examining the artist himself and the culture surrounding him. His work shows how the culture of the 1980’s idealized the strong man with a large erect penis and eroticized the masturbating young female, and how starkly differentiated the gender roles were in society. However he appears to be mocking those roles, enlarging men’s genitalia to enormous proportions and overly sexualizing groups of young women. He saw the world through his own lens, and one can see that in merely his choice of imagery in depicting narratives. “Images such as fetus, dwarf, hermaphrodite; satyr and satyra; effeminized men; aggressive women; Pierrots; the toilet scene, always from the point of the voyeur – all those stress isolation, exclusion, passivity; and much criticism relates them to Beardsley’s sense of his own exclusion from life’s feast” (Fletcher 27). Due to his poor health his a large part of his life was spent in confinement or in a sickbed Beardsley was eclectic and isolated, yet took that isolation and managed to create thought provoking and groundbreaking work that showed a completely avant-garde aesthetic view towards society. As critic Fletcher says, “Beardsley was essentially eclectic: He had no facility, no admiration for nature-pantheism, the superstition of the cultivated classes (21). Beardsley was a true voyeur, a true outsider looking in and seeing things from a perspective that no artist in Europe at that time could even imagine. He was able to reach his audience by presenting such innovative and controversial work because of its highly sexualized aesthetics. Society at that time was fascinated yet still in fear of the power of ‘sex’. Beardsley’s work satisfied this primal need within them to find and see the true nature of perversity and fetishism.
An eccentric to his death, Beardsley’s work and attitude towards overtly sexual and grotesque work changed when he knew that his death was imminent and within sight. Three years before working on the Lysistrata series and other highly grotesque works such as The Impatient Adulterer he was given five years to live by his doctors, and he worked frantically. As one friend remarked, he saw “his ambitions trapped in the coffin of his worn-out young body” (Weintraub 121). In those last five years of his life Beardsley lived and created work that addressed the whole spectrum of sexuality. He stayed strongly attached to one specific vantage point for short periods of time, mimicking his new artistic habit of “taking up new projects with enormous enthusiasm, only to tire of them quickly and abandon all thought of seeing them through” (176 Calloway). Early in his career he was condemned as a Satanist, and then at the end of his life he “felt the inescapable pull of a strongly developed religious sentiment… and the Catholic Church” (Calloway 160) and he joined the Church before his death. This complete turnaround in his view towards morality and sin is seen in his plea for his editor to destroy all of his vulgar works:
“Jesus is our Lord & Judge
Dear Friend
I implore you to destroy all copies of Lysistrata & bad drawings. Show this to Pollitt & conjure him to do same. By all that is holy – all obscene drawings.
Aubrey Beardsley
In my death agony” (Weintraub 258).
One cannot know if this was truly how he felt or if it was a delusion caused by the tuberculosis and his imminent death, yet the fact remains that he wanted to obliterate a lifetime of work. Beardsley was a true eccentric up to the very end, creating an unforgettable aura of artistic unconventionality and avant-garde genius.
Upon Beardsley’s young death at the age of 25 art critics and the art community as a whole saw the tremendous influence he had had on the Art-Neauveau movement in Europe. Immediately upon his death critics began to categorize him, and “he was simultaneously perceived by some critics to be an ornament to the increasingly wholesome and respectable catalogue of … publications, whilst for others he remained an arch-degenerate, a Decadent forever mired” (Calloway 208). For some his turnaround in the last years of his life vindicated him and made his art therefore less controversial and forgivable for its lack of morality. Others still saw him as a master of the medium and innovative in his vision but overly grotesque and darkened by his eccentric life that so often led to rumor and scandal.
Most critics agreed on the fact that with Beardsley’s death the art community and art as a movement had been drastically changed. The most radical and leading figure was gone, and his work was so unique that no one could come close to producing the avant-garde work that he illustrated. “Dandyism is the last glimmer of heroism amid decadence, like the sunset of a dying star, it is glorious, without heat, and full of melancholy” (Baudelaire). When Beardsley died, much of the decadence seen in the art at that time disappeared, for he so embodied the entire Aesthetic Movement. Beardsley was the epitome of a dandy in his day, and when he died, so did that “star” of heroism, that essence of radical society at the time. With his death and in the years that followed, critics and the public alike came to recognize the deep imprint he made upon art and appreciated him not only as an eccentric and almost mythic figure in the art world but as a true master and creative genius.
Aubrey Beardsley blew open the possibilities for expression of perversity and fetishism by coupling it with his unique aesthetic and producing avant-garde images. His work is still relevant to today’s society, as it still comments on gender roles and forces viewers to establish their opinions regarding grotesque sexual imagery. His work has sustained its power because his “reputation never suffered that near total eclipse that dimmed the glorious figures of the Victorian era” (Calloway 216). Beardsley as a man is almost mythic due to the extent of his eccentricity, mysterious aura surrounding his sexuality, his short life, and his self proclaimed grotesque interests. However interesting he is as a character though, his work has the depth and clarity to stand alone without the presence of an esteemed and respectable artist. His work was revolutionary at the time, and he completely shifted the direction of image aesthetics because his work and subject matter became so popular. Controversy always draws attention and inspection, and Beardsley’s work at its nascence did just that and over a century later they can still spark the same debate. Beardsley went through so many cycles and periods throughout his short life and produced such a range of work that it is even more of a shame that his life was ended at 25. We can only wonder what lens he would have seen later society through and how that art would have affected us.
Works Cited
Beardsley, Aubrey. The Story of Venus and Tannhauser: A Romantic Novel. London: Tandem Books. 1967.
Brophy, Brigid. Beardsley and his world. New York: Harmony Books. 1976.
Burdett, Osbert. The Beardsley Period: An Essay in Perspective. New York: Boni and Liveright. 1925.
Calloway, Stephen. Aubrey Beardsley. New York: Harry N. Adams Inc., Publishers. 1998.
Fletcher, Ian. Aubrey Beardsley. Boston: G.K. Hall & Co. 1987.
Pease, Allison. Modernism, Mass Culture, and the Aesthetics of Obscenity. UK: Cambridge University Press. 2000.
Reade, Brian. Aubrey Beardsley. London: Victoria & Albert Museum. 1967.
Weintraub, Stanley. Aubrey Beardsley: Imp of the Perverse. USA: Stanley Weintraub. 1976.
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