Studio: international art (13.1898)

A u brey' Beards ley

Beardsley himself spoke of a famous artist as a small corner of art, and in " black-and-white,"
"the imitable Mr. So and So"; no one could he alternately astonished, shocked, and delighted
retort in kind, for the fact (whether it is one to be an increasing audience during the four years of
regretted or approved is not the question) remains his active work. "Sleep is a cave into which I
that Beardsley stood, and needs must stand, alone, crawl and forget the world," Robert Louis Steven-
He is as remote from the pre-Raphaelites, the son once said in friendly converse; Beardsley
neo Primitives, and the so-called Decorative never seems to have slept, he worked far into the
School as he is from the impressionists and the night, and by day seemed always active. He
actualists. Whether you regard his as a portent never forgot the strange unreal world he studied,
or " a sport" (as science uses the word), he repre- His fantasy often crossed the border-line, his ex-
sented a new departure, but kept the secret of his travagances were more than many could tolerate,
u style " all his own. he was impish in his disregard for decorum, but

He was a satirist or a decorator, at times with his art he played no tricks. Whether work-
both ; but never, one fancies, a conscious preacher, ing with broad masses, white silhouette on black,
Above all, he was an artist literally to his finger- or even black on black, he escaped confusion in
tips. Indeed, to sit behind him at a performance pure line. He never attempted modelling, nor was
of "Tristan and Isolde," and watch those trans- concerned by cast shadow; and in the later
parent hands clutching the rail in front, and methods used in The Rape of the Lock and Vol-
thrilling with the emotion of the music, was in pone, and many of his Savoy designs, he set himself
itself a marvellous experience. No instrument in to develop a style which, while it suggests wood-
the orchestra vibrated more instantly in accord engravings of the sixties so long as you do not
with the changes of the music, from love-passion place examples of each side by side, is no less
to despair. Dowered prodigally by nature, so that his own than were his first drawings executed in
he would doubtless have made his mark no less in pure line or in pure mass.

music or in literature had he preferred sounds or To-day it has been said that his figures are but
words to line, he was content to devote himself to puppets in vacuum. He evidently intended

them to be simulacri only, and recognised that
atmosphere which belongs to colour, and can be
only faintly suggested by a scheme of varying
blacks and greys, is not essential to the art of
black and white. His ingenious decoration,
which invented new "motives"by the score,
that designers of conventional patterns have not
been slow to imitate, is too obvious to need
comment. His curious fondness for candelabra
betrays itself in a very early drawing (unluckily
not adapted for reproduction) (owned by Mr. H.
A. Payne, of Brighton, wTho most kindly put
it at our disposal); so certain pieces of ornate
rococo furniture attracted him again and again,
and so a draped toilet-table, not hitherto a joy to
artists, is frequent in his work. To these pro-
perties he returned as often as did Du Maurier
to his big chintz-covered couch, and his dumpy
vases on a chimney-piece. Lighted candles had
a curious fascination for him ; he drew chiefly
by artificial light, and wherever he could intro-
duce these he did. Perhaps the designs which
are most entirely his own are those based on
subjects from Wagner's operas. Certainly they
owe nothing to the stage effects the composer
himself arranged. That, in face of pictures so
prom a drawing by aubrey beardsley well established as those of Siegfried, Fa/ner, or

{By permission of John La)u\ Esq ) the Third and Fourth Tableaux of the Rhcingold,

260

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