Illustration: Maaijke Middelbeek
Friday, July 22, 2011
Monday, July 11, 2011
Portrait of a dark romanticist
"I have one aim—the grotesque. If I am not grotesque I am nothing." Aubrey Beardsley
Aubrey Beardsley is probably the most controversial artist of the Art Nouveau era. The main themes of his later and more famous work are dark and perverse, with a grotesque erotica. His illustrations are as a rule drawn in contrasting black and white.
Beardsley produced extensive drawings for books and magazines and was also a caricaturist and political cartoonist, mirroring Oscar Wilde's irreverent wit in art. Beardsley was aligned with the homosexual clique that included Oscar Wilde and other English aesthetes, but the details of his own sexuality remain in question. He was generally regarded as asexual, which is hardly surprising, considering his chronic illness and his devotion to his work. Speculation about his sexuality include rumors of an incestuous relationship with his elder sister, Mabel, who may have become pregnant by her brother and miscarried. For sure is that his work is charged with eroticism.
Not only his drawings and short life were explicit. Beardsley was an outstanding public character as well as a private eccentric. Wilde said he had "a face like a silver hatchet, and grass green hair." Beardsley was meticulous about his attire: dove-grey suits, hats, ties; yellow gloves. He would appear at his publisher's in a morning coat and patent leather pumps.
Aubrey Beardsley, 1872-1898.
Text: Maaijke Middelbeek
Aubrey Beardsley is probably the most controversial artist of the Art Nouveau era. The main themes of his later and more famous work are dark and perverse, with a grotesque erotica. His illustrations are as a rule drawn in contrasting black and white.
Beardsley produced extensive drawings for books and magazines and was also a caricaturist and political cartoonist, mirroring Oscar Wilde's irreverent wit in art. Beardsley was aligned with the homosexual clique that included Oscar Wilde and other English aesthetes, but the details of his own sexuality remain in question. He was generally regarded as asexual, which is hardly surprising, considering his chronic illness and his devotion to his work. Speculation about his sexuality include rumors of an incestuous relationship with his elder sister, Mabel, who may have become pregnant by her brother and miscarried. For sure is that his work is charged with eroticism.Not only his drawings and short life were explicit. Beardsley was an outstanding public character as well as a private eccentric. Wilde said he had "a face like a silver hatchet, and grass green hair." Beardsley was meticulous about his attire: dove-grey suits, hats, ties; yellow gloves. He would appear at his publisher's in a morning coat and patent leather pumps.
Aubrey Beardsley, 1872-1898.
Text: Maaijke Middelbeek
Thursday, July 7, 2011
I'll be your mirror
Love holds up a mirror where we see ourselves, the good, the bad, the beauty, the ugly, the truth and lies.
Photo: Boudewijn Rolff
Friday, July 1, 2011
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