Page 18 - Studio International - June 1966

A new illustrator : Aubrey Beardsley

by Joseph Pennell Correspondence

On May 19 the first major exhibition ever held of intensely-'he has hairs on his hands� hairs on Request for material on John Sloan
Aubrey Beardsley's work opened at the Victoria his toes, hair all over him'). It was illustrated If any of your readers has prints, drawings, letters
and Albert Museum, and we are taking the with Beardsley drawings, some of which still or other manuscript material of John Sloan's, I
occasion to reprint here the first published bore the Pre-Raphaelite stamp: certain of these would greatly appreciate their writing me.
critical assessment of Beardsley, which drawings, including a double-page spread from This information will be used in compiling a
appeared in the initial issue of Studio in the April 1893 Studio, are reproduced on pages complete catalogue of Sloan's prints.
April 1893. The article was written by Joseph 258-9. When Pennell's notice appeared Peter Morse
Pennell, American writer and friend of Beardsley was twenty. He died five years later, Associate Curator, Division of Graphic Arts
Whistler (who at that point disliked Beardsley on March 16, 1898. Smithsonian Institution, United States National
Museum, Washington, D.C. 20560
The Initial 'I' was designed by Beardsley for the original article.
have lately seen a few drawings which th<;y were made, and that the artistic value
which seem to me to be very of such designs is not lessened by the fact that they
remarkable. The very limited are quite as well, if not better, printed by steam
number which the artist is said than they have ever been by hand.
to have produced makes their Although in all of Mr Beardsley's drawings which
perfection of execution all the I have so far seen there arc si gn s of other men's in­
more remarkable. I am quite fluence, I know no reason why this influence should
well aware that the mere fact not be apparent if the inventor of what we may
of publicly admitting one's consider the type is a worthy man to imitate. How­
interest in the work of a new ever, to say that Burne Jones, or even his far
man, whose first desi gn may be a delight to artists, greater master Rossetti, invented what is vulgarly
is not considered to be good form in criticism. But known as the Rossetti type, is absurd. They did not
why should one care about good or bad form­ invent it: they have only recorded a type which is
or criticism either, for that matter? For the criti­ very common in this,i;:ountry, emphasizing certain
cism of art today is merely the individual expres­ characteristics which nc, one had ever so empha­
sion of persons who mostly know nothing about sized before. Mr Beardsley, in illustrating the
their subject. Though artists may be struck with a Morte d'Arthur, wished an appropriate type; he has
man's earliest work, and though the creator of it taken the one which appealed to him most, and he
may, and frequently does, never produce anything was perfectly justified in doing so. But it seems to
better, one usually waits until he is dead, or dis­ me that he has drawn such special attention to it seventy-three years ago
couraged, before any visible sign of appreciation is that this detracts from the otherwise great merit of
granted him. Thus is the intelligent critic spared his desi gn s. However, in a series of portraits which Mr C. Monet proves ..• that a haystack, and
from making a spectacle of himself. I have seen, and in desi gn s which he himself calls nothing else, may be a picture, and a poetic pic­
But whether Mr Beardsley's work is appreciated Japanesques, this type scarcely occurs at all. It is ture . . . Mr Beardsley and Mr Russell prove be­
or despised-and my only fear is that he will suffer far more amusing to dwell upon one's pleasure in a tween them that the extremity of oddness and the
from over-appreciation and enthusiasm- the draw­ man's work than upon what may seem its weak­ depth of homeliness offer equally good occasions
ings here printed show decisively the presence nesses, and though he has allowed recently a to make the repulsive or the dreary yield a delight­
among us of an artist, of an artist whose work is number of drawings to be printed elsewhere which ful and interesting result.
quite as remarkable in its execution as in its in­ are not worthy to be signed by him, some of the from At the Dudl ey Gallery
vention: a very rare combination. It is most little headpieces, notably one of men in armour,
interesting to note, too, that though Mr Beardsley seem to me, in execution as well as design, quite 'What is truth?' asked Pilate. 'What is Art?' asks
has drawn his motives from every age, and founded equal to the best fifteenth-century work. Then, too, the Philistine. Art is Degas's L' Absinthe, answers the
his styles-for it is quite impossible to say what his his little landscapes are altogether delightful: New Critic. 'It is the inexhaustible picture. It sets
style may be-on all schools, he has not been though they are conventional in the right sense, a standard.' Whereupon the New Critic lifts up
carried back into the fifteenth century, or suc­ they are not imitations. But most interesting of all his voice in lamentation and disdain. A more typi­
cumbed to the limitations of Japan; he has recog­ is his use of the single line, with which he weaves cal work than L'Absinthe for the new and the old
nized that he is living in the last decade of the his drawings into an harmonious whole, joining schools to fight over could not have been found. It
nineteenth century, and he has availed himself of extremes and reconciling what might be opposi­ is to be seen at the GRAFTON GALLERY • • •
mechanical reproduction for the publication of his tions-leading, but not forcing, you properly to Well, what is the truth about this ' inexhaustible
drawings, which theJaps and the Germans would regard the concentration of his motive. In his picture that draws you back and back again'?
have accepted with delight had they but known of blacks, too, he has obtained a singularly interesting The truth about it is that it is true. We see the
it. The reproduction of the Morte d' Arthur drawing, quality, and always disposes them so as to make a absolute impression of an incident. The incident is
printed in this number, is one of the most marvel­ very perfect arabesque. Certainly, with the com­ unpleasant, and like many unpleasant things of
lous pieces of mechanical engraving, if not the most paratively small amount of work which Mr fascinating interest, it is painted by a painter of
marvellous, that I have ever seen, simply for this Beardsley has produced, he has managed to appeal genius. In the hands of a lesser man it would have
reason: it gives Mr Beardsley's actual handiwork, to artists-and what more could he wish? O been naught-even contemptible. Place Leonardo
and not the interpretation of it by some one else. or Raphael before L' Absinthe and it would find
I know it is the correct thing to rave over the them breathless. from Studio Gossip
velvety, fatty quality of the wood-engraved line, a
quality which can be obtained from any process­
block by careful printing, and which is not due to
the artist at all. But here I find the distinct quality
of a pen line, and of Mr Beardsley's pen line, which Amedee Ozenfant the implications for art of modern industrial environ­
has been used by the artist and reproduced by the Amedee Ozenfant, who died last month at Cannes at ment, the effects of primitive art, etc.-than for his
process-man in a truly extraordinary manner. The the age of 80, at one time had close personal'llnks painting. Through his Interest In philosophy, mathe­
decorative borders also are very charming. Mr with Britain, for In 1937 he opened an art school in matics, architectural concepts and mechanical
Beardsley has reco gn ized and shown by his work London in Maida Vale and ran it for a year before development he exercised considerable influence,
that decoration means, not the production of three leaving for the United States, and was among those responsible for effecting a
or four fine stock desi gn s, and the printing of these Ozenfant may well be remembered more for his certain reconciliation between the arts on the one
in books, to which they have no earthly relation, writings-for /'£/an, the magazine he founded in 1915; hand and science and the machine on the other. 'The
on a hand-press; but that decoration should be the The New Spirit, which he and Le Corbusier edited in picture is a machine for the transmission of senti­
individual and separate production of designs 192�25; and above all Foundations of Modern Art ments.' he wrote. 'Science offers us a kind of physio­
which really illustrate or decorate the page for which was published in 1929 and in which he explored logical language .. .'
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