DOI issue:
No. 62 (May, 1898)
DOI article:White, Gleeson: Aubrey Beardsley, in memoriam
DOI Page / Citation link: https://doi.org/10.11588/diglit.18391#0286
Aubrey Beardsley
Beardsley's popularity and notoriety ; and finally success. America caught the fever, and took it
a host of drawings for The Savoy, and a few scat- badly. A parody on the " Blessed Damozel "
tered designs for various publishers, not forgetting (called, possibly, The Beardsley Damozel the
A Book of Draivings (issued by the publisher of quotation is from memory), will serve to show
The Savoy) which include some few not hitherto the popular attitude to the work of his school:
printed. The yelluw poster gM lookcd out
The poster which Miss Florence Farr used for From the pinkly purple hcaven>
her season at the Avenue Theatre, which began One eye was blue and one was green,
with Dr. John Todhunter's play, "A Comedy ot Her bang was cut uneven".
Sighs," March 29, 1894, was probably the first She had three fingers on one hand,
, — ~\ t ~t~i 11 ,,,, • And the hairs on her head were seven.
introduction of Mr. Beardsley to "the man in
the street," and its blue lady looking through It contains other neat lines, such as, " It was a
a green spotted curtain (followed soon after by kind of wobbly wave that she was standing on," and
the other posters issued by Mr. Fisher Unwin), " She was so very tall her—seemed she reached the
aroused not merely his ridicule but his anger, sun." By this we gather what the public thought it
Henceforth Mr. Beardsley was well known not saw in Beardsley's strange art. That it rarely re-
only in the artistic society of both continents, but cognised even his mannerism is true ; that it usually
in a less degree to the general public also. Comic misunderstood his meaning is also true, but not
papers attempted to burlesque his manner ; Punch wholly the fault of the public. That no imitator
did so on more than one occasion with felicitous ever caught its spirit even remotely is truest of all.
FROM A DRAWING BY AUBREY BEARDSLEY
(/>y permission of John Lane, Esq.)
-59
Beardsley's popularity and notoriety ; and finally success. America caught the fever, and took it
a host of drawings for The Savoy, and a few scat- badly. A parody on the " Blessed Damozel "
tered designs for various publishers, not forgetting (called, possibly, The Beardsley Damozel the
A Book of Draivings (issued by the publisher of quotation is from memory), will serve to show
The Savoy) which include some few not hitherto the popular attitude to the work of his school:
printed. The yelluw poster gM lookcd out
The poster which Miss Florence Farr used for From the pinkly purple hcaven>
her season at the Avenue Theatre, which began One eye was blue and one was green,
with Dr. John Todhunter's play, "A Comedy ot Her bang was cut uneven".
Sighs," March 29, 1894, was probably the first She had three fingers on one hand,
, — ~\ t ~t~i 11 ,,,, • And the hairs on her head were seven.
introduction of Mr. Beardsley to "the man in
the street," and its blue lady looking through It contains other neat lines, such as, " It was a
a green spotted curtain (followed soon after by kind of wobbly wave that she was standing on," and
the other posters issued by Mr. Fisher Unwin), " She was so very tall her—seemed she reached the
aroused not merely his ridicule but his anger, sun." By this we gather what the public thought it
Henceforth Mr. Beardsley was well known not saw in Beardsley's strange art. That it rarely re-
only in the artistic society of both continents, but cognised even his mannerism is true ; that it usually
in a less degree to the general public also. Comic misunderstood his meaning is also true, but not
papers attempted to burlesque his manner ; Punch wholly the fault of the public. That no imitator
did so on more than one occasion with felicitous ever caught its spirit even remotely is truest of all.
FROM A DRAWING BY AUBREY BEARDSLEY
(/>y permission of John Lane, Esq.)
-59