Volpone_ one of the most wonderful decorative designs that ever brought
splendour of gold on vellum to the cover of any mortal’s book. He also
made a pen drawing for the _Cover of a prospectus for Volpone_, which
was after his death published in the book as a _Frontispiece_, for
which it was in no way intended and is quite unfitted, and concerning
which he gave most explicit instructions that it should not appear
in the book at all as he was done with the technique of it and had
developed and created a new style for the book wholly unlike it. All
the same, it might have been used without hurt to the other designs,
or so it seems to me, as a Title Page, since _Volpone_ is lettered on
a label upon it. Nevertheless Beardsley never intended nor desired nor
would have permitted that it should appear in the body of the book at
all; for it is, as he points out, quite out of keeping with the whole
style of the decorations. It was only to be employed as an attraction
on the _Prospectus_. But in this _Prospectus Cover for Volpone_ his
hand’s skill reveals no slightest hesitation nor weakness from his
body’s sorry state--its lines are firmly drawn, almost to mechanical
severity. And all the marvellous suggestion of material surfaces are
there, the white robe of the bewigged figure who stands with hands
raised palm to palm suppliant-wise--the dark polished wood of the gilt
doorway--the fabric of the curtains--the glitter of precious metals and
gems.
In a letter to “dear Leonardo” of this time he sent a “complete list
of drawings for the _Volpone_,” suggested its being made a companion
volume to _The Rape of the Lock_, and asked Smithers to announce it
in _The Athenæum_. Besides the now famous and beautiful _Cover_, he
planned 24 subjects, as Smithers states in his dedication of _Volpone_
to Beardsley’s mother, though the fine initials which he did execute
are, strangely enough, not even mentioned in that list. He reveals that
the frontispiece is to be, like the design of the prospectus, _Volpone
and his treasure_, but that is to be in line and wash--obviously in
the style of _The Lady and the Monkey_--yet strangely enough, the
remaining 23 subjects he distinctly puts down as being in “line”! And
it is in this letter that he promises “a line drawing for a Prospectus
in a few days,” stating especially that it will be a less elaborate
and line version of the _Frontispiece_--and that it is not to appear
in the book. We have the line drawing for the _Prospectus_--and we can
only guess what a fine thing would have been this same design treated
in the manner of _The Lady and the Monkey_ or the _Initials_. That, in
this list, 23 of the 24 designs were to be in line is a little baffling
in face of the fact that the _Initials_ were in the new method, line
with pencil employed like a wash, and that Beardsley himself definitely
states, as we shall see in a letter written on the 19th of this month,
that the drawings are a complete departure in method from anything he
had yet done, which the _Initials_ certainly were.
On the 8th of December, Beardsley wrote to “friend Smithers,” sending
the _Cover Design for Volpone_ and the _Design for the Prospectus
of Volpone_, begging for proofs, especially of the _Design for the
Prospectus_, “on various papers at once.” Smithers sent the proofs of
the two blocks with a present of some volumes of Racine for Beardsley’s
Christmas cheer. The beautiful _Miniature_ edition of _The_ _Rape of
the Lock_, with Beardsley’s special _Cover-design in gold on scarlet_,
had just been published--the “little Rapelets” as Beardsley called them.
However, these 24 designs for the _Volpone_ were never to be. But we
know something about them from a letter to Smithers, written on the
19th of December, which he begins with reference to the new magazine
of _The Peacock_ projected by Smithers, of which more later. Whilst
delighted with the idea of editing _The Peacock_, Beardsley expresses
fear lest the business and turmoil of the new venture may put the
_Volpone_ into second place, and he begs that it shall not be so,
that there shall be no delay in its production. He evidently sent the
_Initials_ with this letter, for he underlines that _Volpone_ is to
be an important book, as Smithers can judge from the drawings that
Beardsley is now sending him--indeed the _Initials_ were, alas! all
that he was ever destined to complete--the 24 illustrations were not to
be. That these _Initials_ were the designs sent is further made clear
by the remark that the new work is a complete, “a marked departure as
illustrative and decorative work from any other arty book published
for many years.” He pronounces in the most unmistakable terms that he
has left behind him definitely all his former methods. He promises the
drawings to be printed in the text by the first week in January, and
that they shall be “good work, the best I have ever done.”
On the morrow of Christmas, Beardsley was writing to Smithers,
urging on the production of the _Prospectus for Volpone_; and it is
interesting to find in this Yuletide letter that the fine drawing in
line and wash, in his aquatint style, of _The Lady and the Monkey_,
was originally intended for the _Volpone_ and not for the set of the
_Mademoiselle de Maupin_ in which it eventually appeared; but was cast
out of the _Volpone_ by Beardsley as “it will be quite out of keeping
with the rest of the initials.” So that the style of the Initials was
clearly the method he had intended to employ for his illustrations.
What his remarkable creative fancy and dexterity of hand designed for
the illustrations to _Volpone_ only _The Lady and the Monkey_ and the
_Initials_ can hint to us--he was never to create them.
The sunshine and the warmth, the picturesque surroundings of the place,
the mountains and the sea, brought back hope to the plagued fellow; and
again he clambered out of the grave. Languor and depression left him.
He was on the edge of Yuletide and had known no cold or chill; indeed
his only “grievance is mosquitoes.” He would weigh himself anxiously,
fearful of a set-back at every turn.
* * * * *
Now, a fantastically tragic fact of Beardsley’s strange career--a fact
that Max Beerbohm alone of all those who have written upon Beardsley
has noticed--was the very brief period of the public interest in him.
Beardsley arose to a universal fame at a bound--with _The Yellow
Book_; he fell from the vogue with as giddy a suddenness. With the
last number of _The Savoy_ he had vanished from the public eye almost
as though he had never been. The Press no longer recorded his doings;
and his failure to keep the public interest with _The Savoy_, and all
its superb achievement, left but a small literary and artistic coterie
in London sufficiently interested in his doings to care or enquire
whether he were alive or dead or sick or sorry, or even as to what
new books he was producing. The _Book of Fifty Drawings_ seemed to
have written Finis to his career. Nobody realised this, nor had better
cause to realise it, than Leonard Smithers. It had been intended to
continue _The Savoy_ in more expensive form as a half-yearly volume;
but Smithers found that it was hopeless as a financial venture--it
had all ended in smoke. Smithers was nevertheless determined to fan the
public homage into life again with a new magazine the moment he thought
it possible. And the significance of the now very rare “newspaper
cutting” had not been lost upon Beardsley himself. So it had come about
that Smithers had planned the new magazine, to be called _The Peacock_,
to appear in the April of 1898, to take the place of _The Savoy_; and
had keenly interested Beardsley in the venture. For once Beardsley’s
flair for a good title failed him, and he would have changed the name
of _The Peacock_ to _Books and Pictures_, which sounded commonplace
enough to make _The Peacock_ appear quite good when otherwise it seemed
somewhat pointless.
[Illustration: INITIAL FOR “VOLPONE”]
Beardsley’s letter of the 19th of December to Smithers was clearly in
reply to the urging of Smithers that Beardsley should be the editor of
his new magazine _The Peacock_ and should design the cover and whatever
else was desired by Smithers. But Beardsley makes one unswerving
condition, and but one--that “it is quite _agreed that Oscar Wilde
contributes nothing to the magazine, anonymously, pseudonymously or
otherwise_.” The underlining is Beardsley’s. Beardsley’s detestation
of Wilde, and of all for which Wilde stood in the public eye, is the
more pronounced seeing that both men had entered the Church of Rome
with much publicity. Beardsley would not have Wilde in any association
with him at any price.... Before Beardsley leaves the subject of
_The Peacock_ he undertakes to design “a resplendent peacock in
black and white” and reminds Smithers that he has “already some fine
wash drawings” of his from which he can choose designs for the first
number of the magazine. So that we at least know that this first
number of _The Peacock_ was to have had a resplendent peacock in
black and white for its cover, and that it was to have been adorned
with the superb decorations for _Mademoiselle de Maupin_, the supreme
artistic achievement of Beardsley’s resplendent skill. He outstripped
in beauty of handling even his already exquisite craftsmanship: and
it is the most tragic part of his tragedy of life that he was to die
before he had given the world the further fulfilment of his wondrous
artistry--leaving us wondering as to what further heights he might have
scaled.
Beardsley knew full well that these drawings in line and wash, in his
“aquatint” style, were his supreme achievement.
We know from a letter from Beardsley in this month that Smithers
was still at his little office at No. 4, in the Royal Arcade, off
Bond Street, whence Smithers sent me a coloured engraving of the
_Mademoiselle de Maupin_, at Beardsley’s request, which had been
beautifully reproduced in a very limited edition. Though Beardsley
himself realised his weakness in oil painting, he would have made a
mark in watercolours, employed with line, like coloured engravings.
But the gods had willed that it should not be.
Beardsley always had the astuteness to give great pains and care to
the planning of his prospectuses--he watched over them with fatherly
anxiety and solicitude. But what is less known is the very serious part
he played on the literary editor’s side of the magazine of which he was
art-editor. And in his advice to Smithers concerning the new venture of
_The Peacock_, he has left to us not only the astute pre-vision upon
which he insisted to Smithers, but he reveals his own tastes and ideals
in very clear terms. The magazine, as he wisely warns Smithers, should
not be produced “unless you have piles of stuff up your editorial
sleeves.” And he proceeded to lay down with trenchant emphasis his
ideals for the conduct of a magazine and, incidently, his opinions of
the art and literature of the day, revealing a shrewd contempt for
the pushful mediocrities who had elbowed their way into the columns
of _The Yellow Book_ and even _The Savoy_. “The thing,” he writes,
“must be edited with a savage strictness, and very definite ideas
about everything get aired in it. Let us give birth to no more little
backbone-less babies. A little well-directed talent is in a periodical
infinitely more effective than any amount of sporadic and desultory
genius (especially when there is no genius to be got).” Beardsley gives
in more detail his mature attitude towards literature: “On the literary
side, impressionistic criticism and poetry and cheap short-storyness
should be gone for. I think the critical element should be paramount.
Let verse be printed very sparingly.... I should advise you to let
Gilbert Burgess do occasional things for us. Try to get together
a staff. Oh for a Jeffreys or a Gibbon, or anybody with something
to say.”... And then we get in definite terms his sympathies and
antipathies in art--“On the art side, I suggest that it should attack
_untiringly and unflinchingly_ the Burne-Jones and Morrisian mediæval
business, and set up a wholesome 17th and 18th century standard of what
picture making should be.”
There we have Beardsley’s whole range and also, be it confessed, his
limitations. To the 18th century he owed all; and on the edge of
eternity, unreservedly, frankly, and honourably, he made the solemn
confession of his artistic faith.
X
THE END
1898
Yet the cruelty of Fate but more grimly pursued the stricken man with
relentless step. December went out in “a pitiless drench of rain.” It
kept Beardsley indoors. A week of it gave place to the sunshine again,
and his hopes were reborn.
So the Yuletide of 1897 came and went; and the New Year broke, with
Beardsley dreaming restless dreams of further conquests.
In the early days of the New Year, the dying man’s hopes were raised by
the sight of “a famous Egyptologist who looks like a corpse, has looked
like one for fourteen years, who is much worse than I am, & yet lives
on and does things. My spirits have gone up immensely since I have
known him.”... But the middle of the month saw the cold north-east wind
come down on Mentone, and it blew the flickering candle of Beardsley’s
life to its guttering. After the 25th of January he never again left
his room. February sealed his fate. He took to his bed, from which he
arose but fitfully, yet at least he was granted the inestimable boon of
being able to read. The Egyptologist also took to his bed--a bad omen
for Beardsley. By the end of February the poor plagued fellow had lost
heart--he felt the grave deepening and could not summon the will any
further to clamber out of it.
[Illustration: THE DEATH OF PIERROT
“_As the dawn broke, Pierrot fell into his last sleep. Then upon
tip-toe, silently up the stair, noiselessly into the room, came the
comedians Arlecchino, Pantaleone, il Dottore, and Columbina, who with
much love carried away upon their shoulders, the white frocked clown of
Bergamo; whither, we know not._”]
The sands in the hour-glass of Pierrot were running low. It was soon
a fearful effort to use his beloved pen. Anxious to complete his
designs and decorations for the _Volpone_, and remembering the pushing
forward of the _Prospectus_ that he had urged on the publisher,
he had fallen back on the pencil--as the elaborately drawn _Initial_
letters show--for each of the scenes in _Volpone_, employing pencil
with the consummate tact and beauty of craftsmanship that had marked
his pen line and his aquatintesques in line and wash. Whatever dreams
he had of full-paged illustrations in line and wash had now to be
abandoned. Just as in his Great Period of _The Savoy_ he had come
nearer to nature and had discovered the grass on the fields and flowers
in the woods to be as decorative under the wide heavens as they were
when cut in glasses “at Goodyears” in the Royal Arcade; just as he had
found that fabrics, gossamer or silk or brocade, were as decorative as
were flat black masses; just as he found intensely musical increase
in the orchestration of his line as he admitted nature into his
imagination; so now he came still nearer to nature with the pencil,
and his Satyr as a terminal god illumined by the volume of atmosphere
and lit by the haunting twilight, like his Greek column against the
sky, took on quite as decorative a form as any flatness of black or
white in his Japanesque or Greek Vase-painting phases. But as his
skilled fingers designed the new utterance to his eager spirit, the
fragile body failed him--at last the unresponsive pencil fell from his
bloodless fingers--his work was done.
As the young fellow lay a-dying on the 7th of March, nine days before
he died he scribbled with failing fingers that last appeal from the
Hotel Cosmopolitain at Mentone to his friend the publisher Leonard
Smithers that he himself had put beyond that strange man’s power to
fulfil--even had he had the will--for “the written word remains,” and,
printed, is scattered to the four winds of heaven:
Jesus is our Lord & Judge
Dear Friend, I implore you to destroy all copies of Lysistrata & bad
drawings. Show this to Pollitt and conjure him to do same. By all that
is holy--all obscene drawings.
Aubrey Beardsley.
In my death agony.
But this blotting out was now beyond any man’s doing. The bitter
repentance of the dying Beardsley conforms but ill with the canting
theories of such apologists as hold that Beardsley was a satirist
lashing the vices of his age. Beardsley had no such delusions, made
no such claims, was guiltless of any such self-righteousness. He
faced the stern facts of his own committing; and almost with the last
words he wrote he condemned the acts of his hands that had sullied a
marvellous achievement--and he did so without stooping to any attempt
at palliation or excuse. His dying eyes gazed unflinchingly at the
truth--and the truth was very naked. The jackals who had egged him on
to base ends and had sniggered at his obscenities, when his genius
might have been soaring in the empyrean, could bring him scant comfort
as he looked back upon the untidy patches of his wayfaring; nor were
they the likely ones to fulfil his agonised last wishes--indeed, almost
before his poor racked body was cold, they were about to exploit not
only the things he desired to be undone, but they were raking together
for their own profit the earlier crude designs that they knew full well
Beardsley had striven his life long to keep from publication owing to
their wretched mediocrity of craftsmanship.
On the sixteenth day of the March of 1898, at twenty-five years and
seven months, his mother and his sister by his side, the racked body
was stilled, and the soul of Aubrey Beardsley passed into eternity.
The agonised mother who had been his devoted companion and guardian
throughout this long twelvemonth of flitting flight from death,
together with his beloved sister Mabel Beardsley, were with him to the
end. They were present at the Cathedral Mass; and “there was music.”
So the body of Aubrey Beardsley was borne along the road that winds
from the Cathedral to the burial place that “seemed like the way of the
Cross--it was long and steep and we walked.” They laid him to rest in a
grave on the edge of the hill hewn out of the rock, a sepulchre with an
arched opening and a stone closing it, so that they who took their last
walk beside him “thought of the sepulchre of The Lord.”
Hail and Farewell!
[Illustration: AVE ATQVE VALE]
A KEY TO THE DATES OF WORKS BY AUBREY BEARDSLEY ACCORDING TO THE STYLE
OF HIS SIGNATURE
PUERILIA
Mid-1888 he comes to town
JUVENILIA
Mid-1889 to Mid-1891, blank of achievement
FORMATIVE PERIOD--BURNE-JONESESQUES
Mid-1891 to Mid-1892
During these three periods, up to Mid-1892, Beardsley signs with three
initials A. V. B.
MEDIÆVALISM AND THE HAIRY-LINE JAPANESQUES
The _Morte d’Arthur_ and _Bon Mots_
Mid-1892 to Mid-1893. Begins the “Japanesque mark”--the _stunted_ mark.
In the Spring of 1893, with the coming of “The Studio,” and the ending
of this period, Beardsley cuts the V out of his initials and out of
his signature. He now signs A. B. or A. BEARDSLEY or AUBREY B. in
ill-shaped “rustic” capitals, when he does not employ the “Japanesque
mark,” even sometimes when he does employ it.
“SALOME”
Mid-1893 to the New Year 1894. The “Japanesque mark” becomes longer,
more slender, and more graceful.
“THE YELLOW BOOK” OR GREEK VASE PERIOD
This ran from the New Year 1894 to Mid-1895; and in the middle of this
_Yellow Book_ period, that is, in Mid-1894, he signs the “Japanesque
mark” for the last time.
THE GREAT PERIOD
I. “_The Savoy_” and II. “_The Aquatintesques_”
Mid-1895 to Yuletide 1896 1897
From Mid-1895 Beardsley signs in plain block capitals, right up to
the end--the only difference being that in the last phase of the
_Aquatintesque line and wash_ work with the few line drawings of this
time, that is from Mid-1896, he signs as a rule only the initials A. B.
in plain block capitals, but now usually _in a corner of his design_,
either in or without a small square label.
“AUBREY BEARDSLEY”
HAS BEEN DESIGNED
BY ROBERT S. JOSEPHY
AND PRINTED UNDER HIS
SUPERVISION BY THE
VAIL-BALLOU PRESS
BINGHAMTON
NEW YORK
Transcriber's Notes:
Repetative heading for - The Key to dates...- has been removed.
Italics are shown thus: _sloping_.
Variations in spelling and hyphenation are retained.
Perceived typographical errors have been changed.